The Night's End
by trickygrin
Summary: The basics-- Meryl sees a mysterious light in the desert, chaos follows. Da da dum...this fic is DONE (complete w/ epilogue!).
1. The Great Escape

Disclaimer-thingy--Damn..it's taking me forever just to get this right. Okay, so Trigun, Vash, Meryl, Millie, etc. etc. don't belong to me. They belong to Yasuhiro Nightow...and YKO, and Madhouse...and anybody else who happens to actually have a stake in them. So don't go and sue me or whatever, because I'm broke, and all you'd get out of me are my cds and a deck of cards. Really.  
  
  
  
Sand shimmered in the distance, a mirage of water ever tempting those who stayed in the sun too long. Staggering slightly, the man in red wiped his brow before opening the canteen at his side and taking a swig. Raising his hand to block out overhead light, he squinted and glanced around. Nope,' he decided at long last, I am still in the middle of nowhere.' It was hard to travel by foot everywhere you needed to go, but he didn't generally have any money, except for when he decided that situation called for him to take a job. Thankfully, that hadn't happened recently. Sighing heavily, he hoisted his bag and took off again. The ruts in the road ahead of him looked well-traveled, and he had visions of being picked up by someone. Someone...beautiful, long hair, big eyes...someone with a really nice ride...and--  
  
You left us behind again! Y-you stuck us with the bill for that hotel!! His reverie was interrupted by the sounds of someone screaming at him from about three inches away. And you didn't even take any water with you...are you trying to get yourself killed, is that it? Bounty hunters not good enough for you? No, the $$60,000,000,000 Man has to skip town and tempt fate through dehydration!!   
  
He tried to look at the offending voice, and found it too bright. He was looking straight at the blinding sun. This meant he was no longer standing. He was flat on his back, must've fallen...couldn't remember anything beyond walking in this heat for hours and hours and hours... Opening his mouth to give a snappy retort, he found it drier than the scenery, and only managed a weak, Glad to know you care. Jeez, he must be in worse shape than he had previously thought. Not that you really could get much worse than he had thought.  
  
Meryl Strife stopped what she had been about to say (no doubt something about his eternal lack of responsibility) and pursed her lips. At least you're still alive. And you deserve everything you got when you skipped out on us. She waited, Admit it, or we're not going to help you.  
  
Her partner looked at her worriedly, Um...senpai? Isn't that a little harsh? He did wait for us here after all.  
  
Meryl looked at her disgustedly, That's because he didn't really have any choice in the matter. If he would've filled up his waterbottle you can bet he wouldn't have waited. She glared at him, You know something, it's amazing that you've survived as long as you have. You never think more than three minutes ahead at any one time. It is a really, really irratating habit.  
  
Millie Thompson looked on with a hint of worry in her eyes. Normally inclined to an optimistic outlook towards life, she had a vague feeling that if this situation was left to its inevitable end, it would end up with the man on the ground in extreme pain and her partner storming off in frustration. Um...senpai, maybe he had a reason to leave town without any water.  
  
Vash finally managed to get out, Maybe I didn't get any water because someone was guarding the pump all night. Besides, I figured I had enough water for a couple of hours.  
  
Meryl underwent several interesting color changes, finally settling on an embarrassed pink, Well, it was only because I didn't want you sneaking out on us again. If you keep it up, you'll get us both fired!  
  
They all stared at eachother for a couple of moments before he finally broke the silence with, Can I have some water so that I can discuss this with you, and without the company of the little hallucinations I'm having right now? His voice cracked pitifully at the end of the statement.  
  
Millie went to get him some water from her Thomas while Meryl stared at him. He fancied that there might have been a softening of her features before she started her glare, but after a few moments of the glare, he couldn't imagine where there might have been room for one. With an elaborate sigh, she turned her back on the offending member of their group and snagged her Thomas' reins.   
  
So, can you get up, or are we going to be forced to tie you into the Thomas' saddle?   
  
Um...I can get up. He pushed his palms against the sand, forcing a handhold that would support his weight. I think I can, anyway. His knees were shaking badly, and his arms felt weak.   
  
Meryl dropped the reins, Stop, before you hurt yourself more. Grabbing an arm, she pulled him upright before forcing him to his feet. He wobbled, and so she supported him while Millie came back with the water.  
  
Here you go, Mr. Vash! The water in the offered bottle was warm but clean, and anything was better than nothing. He finished it and handed it back to her with a grateful smile.  
  
Thanks. I really needed that. With a groan, he leaned against the Thomas.  
  
Oh, don't thank me, that was Senpai's water! She flashed a bright grin, seemingly oblivious to Meryl's clenched fist.  
  
Well, thanks to you, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten any. He smirked at Meryl. Then he turned his attention to the Thomas and swung a leg over the saddle. After much maneuvering, aid from Millie, and a few half-hearted pushes from Meryl, he was finally in the saddle. Millie and Meryl climbed on the other Thomas, and they took off. It was a little past noon, and the sun was beating a hole through his head. Sighing wearily, he slumped a little in the saddle and watched dune by lonely dune disappear beneath the thomas' hooves. The Insurance Girls were both silent, the big one with a slight smile and a distant look...probably thinking about Mr. Priest.' He smiled slightly at the thought... The other one was looking at everything but him. He sighed slightly and leaned against the luggage secured behind him. Balancing himself and dropping the reins, he closed his eyes so that he could take a nap-  
  
ARRGH...that man's sleeping again! Meryl crossed her arms in a huff before glancing back at Vash's unconscious form. You'd think that he had a real job...but no- not the infamous Humanoid Typhoon-  
  
Millie turned to Meryl, Well, he does work as a bodyguard sometimes, doesn't that count?   
  
Not as much as one might think, Meryl growled, staring intently forward, as if by ignoring everything else, she could pretend she was anywhere but where she actually was. A flash of light in the distance caught her attention. That was odd, this area had been abandoned for several years now due to terrible sand storms. Hey Millie...  
  
  
  
Did you just see something? A light over there- she pointed.   
  
Millie shook her head, No...do you think we should check it out?  
  
Meryl glanced over at Vash, gauging his condition, No, I'll check it out, you take him on into town and get some rooms for us in a hotel. I'll meet up with you after I check out the light. Millie nodded, and climbed out of the saddle, handiing the reins to Meryl. Meryl started to say something, paused then restarted, Just make sure that HE doesn't cause any trouble.   
  
Nodding, Millie stopped the thomas and climbed on the other one, moving Vash forward so that there was room in the saddle. After getting hold of the reins, she waved cheerily at Meryl before giving her Thomas a kick and taking off in the general direction of town.  
  
Meryl sighed. Inside her head a little warning bell was ringing nonstop, telling her to reconsider sending Millie into town alone...with Vash. It was an almost surefire recipe for disaster. But...she didn't want to think about that right now. Instead, focus on the present and the flashing light that she was investigating. After all, the last flashing light they'd spotted in the desert had turned out to be that priest and his motorcycle. Who knows what this one might turn out to be.  
  
With a click, she turned her Thomas towards the direction it had come from and started towards it, all the time hoping that leaving Millie and Vash to themselves wouldn't prove to be as big a mistake as she was beginning to think it was.  
  
Behind her, both suns began the descent to nightfall.


	2. Interlude In town

Disclaimer- Hey, you could theoretically sue me, but we don't want that, now do we? I mean, nothing in the below story belongs to me (Trigun, Vash, Meryl, Millie, etc.) and I'm only doing this because it's really cold outside and I'm bored. So...you get the point.  
  
  
  
Vash woke up slowly, regretting every minute of it as his senses came back to him. He was lying on a bed...or at least on something soft, and Good Lord--was that him he was smelling? Resisting the urge to gag at the smell, he rolled over and pushed himself up onto one elbow. From this vantage point he could see the entire room.  
  
It was small, two twin beds centered in a room with one window and a single chair near one of the two doors. Must be a hotel, he thought, Meryl certainly knew how to pick them. Ignoring the bed's protesting squeaks and groans, he pushed himself into a sitting position. Uh-oohh...dammit, my head hurts... Cradling his head, he forced himself out of bed and towards the door nearest him. He knew he had some medicine in his bag, now he just had to find out where the insurance girls had put it. It was probably somewhere where he couldn't get at it without them knowing, a minor precaution against him skipping town twice in two days time.  
  
Grasping the doorknob, he was startled as it was yanked forward, sending him into a nosedive--right into a pair of brown shoes. Blinking twice, he realized that he had fallen as someone on the other side of the door had tried to open the door at the same time as him. Blinking once more, he realized that his chin seemed to be full of splinters and it seemed to be throbbing. he managed before getting cut off by a high-pitched voice.  
  
OH! Mr. Vash, you're awake! I was just going to get the doctor, but I guess you're all right! Millie's voice cut through the fog in Vash's mind, and he winced involuntarily. After a moment's pause and thoughtful consideration, she asked, And...um...Mr. Vash, why are you on the floor? She smiled brightly at him as he considered his answer.  
  
No reason. He settled on the simplest answer, for him anyway. Hey, which direction is the shower, and where's my bag?  
  
Oh. Your bag is in our bathroom where the shower is. The bathroom's through that door. With a bright smile, she pointed at the other door in the room. Is that all you wanted to know? If that's it, I have to go stable the thomas and see about getting a dinner brought here. I don't think you're well enough to eat downstairs, and I'm sure Senpai won't want to once she gets back.  
  
She's not here? Vash felt a little guilty at the hopeful tone in his voice but he really didn't think his head could stand the inevitable end to the lecture that she'd started out in the desert. Not that he didn't deserve every minute of it...but his head hurt just thinking about her usual reactions to his escapades.'  
  
No. She's went to go check on a light outside of town, and hasn't come back yet.  
  
How long has she been gone? He knew he sounded paranoid, but he just couldn't help it. Years of experience had taught him to always doublecheck things, because you never knew when someone might be in trouble.  
  
Only about two hours. She should be back in a couple of hours, but until then I'm to make sure you don't get into any trouble. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she added, And Mr. Vash? You might want to take a shower. If you do that right now, I'll send your coat to be washed while you're showering. Is that okay? Without waiting for an answer, she hauled him, unprotesting, to his feet, and helped him out of his coat. Holding it at arm's length, she shut the door behind her, leaving him alone in the room.  
  
Shivering slightly in the sudden absence of his coat, he wondered where Millie had learned such brisk efficiency. It certainly didn't seem to be a natural part of her nature, which meant that Meryl probably had a great deal to do with it. Sighing heavily at the great task in front of him, he turned towards the bathroom door, and stumbled towards it. After locking the bathroom door behind him, he sat down heavily and began the arduous task that began his daily shower--the buckle removal.  
  
Two hours later, he was showered and dressed again, this time in a loose shirt and pair of pants. Brushing his hair out of his eyes with a sigh, he wandered out the door to find Millie...and maybe even dinner. Stomach rumbling ominously, and dreams of soup and sandwiches dancing through his head, he padded down the hallway to the stairs.  
  
At the base of the stairs he hesitated, hearing hushed voices in the bar. It seemed that someone had discovered Vash's identity, and Millie was attempting to do damage control by informing the owner of the hotel that he was wrong, that Vash wasn't like the man in the rumors. Sighing again, this time in resignation, Vash stepped out from the stairwell and into the bar.   
  
At the sound of him approaching, Millie and the bartender both looked up. Millie's mouth curved into a cheery smile, and the man's eyes widened in apparent fear. Nodding at Millie, Vash stepped up to the bar and sat down on a stool, slouching forward onto the counter. his voice was muffled by his arms. After a moment of staring at the barkeep through his hair, he blew his bangs out of his eyes and asked for a glass of water.  
  
Swallowing nervously, the bartender looked at Millie once before scurrying around his bar, looking for a glass. Millie, meanwhile had turned to Vash with a concerned look in her eyes. Mr. Vash, this man says that we might not be able to stay the night here because of you. Behind her, the man jumped as if he'd been shocked. He says he doesn't want any trouble, and I tried to tell him you weren't at all like the stories but he wouldn't listen. He wants us to leave town too! Crossing her arms determinedly she added, But THAT would be disobeying Senpai's orders, which is wrong. Don't you think so Mr. Vash?  
  
He nodded absently, he really didn't feel up to this. However, he also knew he was too sick to be able to take being kicked out of town by the locals. With the way his luck was running now, he'd die of starvation or something worse before he reached the next town over. Cursing everything that had brought him to the point where he'd be forced to use this, he turned to the bartender who was looking at him fearfully, a glass of water in his hand. Hmmm...is she telling the truth? Do you really want to make these poor women suffer along with me? Quirking his eyebrow at the last question, he waited for the poor man to answer. After recieving a frightened shake of the head that indicated that the man was indeed appalled at that very thought, Vash pulled the peanut bowl to him and motioned for his water, which the man gave up willingly before retreating to the far side of the bar.  
  
Millie turned to Vash, We get to stay in town tonight, isn't that nice? He nodded, turning back to his peanuts, carefully shelling one before eating it. One peanut, one drink, one peanut, one drink...  
  
Your partner back yet? He questioned casually, focusing almost entirely on shelling and drinking.   
  
she shook her head woefully, Otherwise she would have dealt with that man just now. And SHE wouldn't have used threats. He flinched, he thought she hadn't noticed. Sighing slightly, her shoulders slumped under her cape, I don't know where she is. The light can't have been that far. Where IS she? Then she grinned slowly in realization, You know what, Mr. Vash? She's gone. He nodded at this sage wisdom from Millie. If we hurry, we can be drunk before she gets back!


	3. Down the Rabbit Hole

Disclaimer- The Surgeon General warns that reading this fic is not guaranteeing to raise IQ. The author warns that writing this fic doesn't make these characters hers. The two points raised above have no correlation. I would also like it noted that the last two pages of this chapter were written at 4 in the morning after a bolt of inspiration...therefore if it make no sense...blame it on lack of sleep and I'll fix it later.  
  
  
Meryl's Thomas stopped of its own accord. Sighing in frustration, she raised her binoculars to her eyes once more to scan the horizon. Still nothing,' she sighed again, before lowering them once more and reaching for her waterbottle. But, like the many times she'd reached for it before, it remained as dry as her surroundings. Scowling fiercely, she sat back in her saddle and focused on the dune that her Thomas was climbing at the moment, scanning for any hint of what she might have seen before.  
  
Still nothing? That was a laugh. Nothing seemed to be a bit of an overestimate, she figured. There was no sign of anything that could have possibly been the light she'd seen. No people, no vehicles, nothing. And she'd been at this for hours, just wandering around and looking. She probably looked like a fool to anybody passing by, and she felt like one too. By now she knew each and every sandy foot of every dune that she'd ridden today, since discovering that Vash had abandoned his room in the middle of the night. Damn that man...  
  
By now one of the suns was in her eyes, forcing her to squint, and giving her a terrible headache. Five hours on the Thomas...and still nothing. She hadn't imagined the light, but there really was nothing to be done about the situation besides going back into town for the night and coming back tomorrow. One of the suns was beginning to set over to her left, and she was getting a headache from the constant light in her eyes. And any pain reliever's she had would be nearly impossible to take with her parched throat...  
  
Why was she even here? Why did she care about a light that she saw hours ago? Sure, it was out of the ordinary, but there were millions of possible explanations for them, and the majority of those explanations didn't need any sort of help from her whatsoever. So why was she here? Perhaps it was because of that preacher in black that Millie favored? Honestly, Meryl didn't know what Millie saw in that man, but still, why was she here? Hard as it was to admit, even to herself, she decided it was probably simply because it was what Vash would have done had he been conscious at the time. That poor guy--she stopped that train of thought before it could get potentially embarrassing. Strict control, that was what she prided herself on. She wasn't weak. She didn't want to feel weak.  
  
With a start, she realized that she'd hadn't been moving for quite some time now, and the second of the suns was setting. By now, Millie would be getting worried. And could she really trust Millie to keep Vash out of trouble? Shaking her head, she turned her Thomas back to town, choosing to ignore the possibilities of the light for the time being. If it was still plaguing her tomorrow, she go and check it out with Millie, but for now...she'd better concentrate on finding her way back to town.  
  
Reining her Thomas around, she had just started retracing her steps when the earth beneath her began to shake. Trying to keep her Thomas in line while maintaining her seat, she watched as the sand began to slide off of the dune she was on, revealing some new material underneath. Oh my God, she managed to whisper before her Thomas lost it's footing and fell, dumping her out of the saddle and rolling her down the dune's slope. With a frightened bleat, the Thomas took off as fast as it could, reins dangling behind it.  
  
Rolling to a stop, Meryl coughed a few times before scraping the sand out of her eyes and looking at the new structure rising where the dune had once been. It was a huge dust-encrusted metal plate, that poked out of the dune like the cover to a book. It bowed slightly towards her, and from her current vantage point at the base of the far side of the dune, she couldn't see what this door' was opening up to reveal.  
  
What the- she scrambled to her feet and drew for her derringers. They weren't there of course. Cursing herself silently, she recalled that she'd stripped the heavy derringer holsters off of her cloak earlier when she'd been forced to help Vash into the saddle. They'd been getting in the way, and Millie couldn't handle the man herself. Out of water, out of bullets, a mysterious door into the ground out in the middle of nowhere...could this get any worse?  
  
The shaking stopped, and the now-revealed door stopped creaking open. From the other side of the dune, Meryl could hear the buzz of electrical equipment and a faint hum of-something else, coming from inside the opening. Curiosity overcame discretion, and she stumbled up the slope to where the plate was.  
  
It was even larger from up close. Running her hand over it, she felt the pitted nature of the metal and saw the scorch marks buried underneath years of sand and dust. The edges were faintly rimmed with rust which flaked off when she brushed her hand over it. It was cool to the touch which surprised her. Even approaching nightfall, the desert was still almost unbearably hot.   
  
She stepped around the side of the door, watching for anything that might be dangerous. There were numerous incidents of travelers coming into contact with lost technology, and not every tale ended happily. With any luck, there wouldn't be any trouble here, but she wasn't willing to take any stupid chances on security robots catching her. Especially since she was woefully unarmed and alone also. However, she had a feeling that if she didn't investigate this mysterious door at this point in time, she might never see it again. And for a lost technology on a dying, desert world, never is a very long time to ask of something that would only take a moment. Only a moment. And if she repeated that to herself enough, she might even begin to believe it.  
  
From the other side, she could see into the pit that had opened up. Below her was a gleaming metal deck with a ramp that led further into the ground. Sand from the dune had spilled over onto the metallic deck and it mildly dusted the walkway below her. There was no sign of danger, and she figured that had there been security robots around they would have been here by now. It seemed perfectly logical, since she was well aware that they could sense her from a distance, and they certainly could overpower one lone human through sheer firepower and numbers. There was no need for them to go sneaking around. No, there certainly was no need. Therefore logic dictated that there was no security system.  
  
Meryl, you're psyching yourself out,'' she breathed, before forcing herself to walk straight out from her hiding place behind the plate and around the edge to the gaping hole that led into what she was beginning to suspect was a ship. She would have felt much safer had she had even one of her derringers with her, and even more secure in her position if Millie had been there to watch her back. Or if Vash... Stop it. No more thoughts of that nature. Keep your mind on the situation at hand Meryl Stryfe.  
  
Her footsteps echoed off the walls as she entered the passageway. A faint buzz was all she could hear. It was the sound of a hive of sorts...the sound of millions of small voices working together...it was the sound that the mechanical portions of the Plants made. It was, in short, the sound of the lost technologies. Following the buzz, she walked down the corridor until she was stopped by a sudden branching. In front of her, a sign with arrows pointing down either way informed her that one way led to the Control Room, and the other led to Crew Quarters. Figuring that the crew's area would probably be more likely to have water and a clean set of clothes, she followed the arrows, keeping an eye out for anybody else along the way. However, she had this feeling that the ship was probably uninhabited. It felt...dead, if an inanimate object could ever be said to be so. Or rather, not dead but merely unfulfilled...as if its part in the grand scheme of things had been forgotten. She shivered slightly at that thought. Although she didn't know what this thing did, or was designed to do...it was unlike the remains of the other ships she had seen, and that scared her most of all, though she hated to admit it. It was different, and it still worked to some extent at least, as evidenced by the fact that the door was still opening after so many years (she didn't even want to think about WHY the door was opeing). And although this ship was probably something designed to help her ancestors through their journey to this planet, it WAS lost technology, and sometimes things were better left undiscovered... But here she was again, psyching herself out, when all she needed to do was find something to eat and drink before she shrivelled up and died. That's it Meryl, just focus on the now. And keep talking to yourself like this, and people will think you're crazy, she added silently.  
  
Finally reaching the designated Crew Quarters' area, she read the little map in front of the door to it, and followed the directions there to find a cafeteria which served both water and preserved food rations. Searching around, she located a cup and proceeded to eat and drink until the pain in her stomach and the cracking in the back of her throat were gone. After she had finished the meal, she washed her dishes and set them aside, before going to look for a change of clothes.  
  
Inside the area labeled Barracks,' she found several shipsuits, a few of which came close to fitting her. Evidently whoever had used these before her had been taller than her by about half a foot, but she wasn't going to complain. Seeking out a shower, she was pleasantly surprised to find it still worked, and despite the fact that she was unable to get all of the traveling grit out of her hair and off of her skin, she felt immensely better than she had previously. Now all she had to do was to get to town...  
  
Searching every section of the Crew's Quarters, she couldn't find any methods of transportation at all. Not surprising, but still vaguely disappointing. This place was starting to get on her nerves, with its quiet noises, and it's sense of alien purpose. That's just paranoia talking, she assured herself before leaving the Crew's Quarter's to head down the hallway to the Control Room. When she passed the hallway where she'd entered the ship a few hours ago, she noted with dismay that in the time she'd been gone, the door had shut again. Sighing wearily, she headed towards the Control Room once more. Transportation first, deal with getting the door to open later.  
  
Finally, she reached a door labeled Control Room.' It slid open with a hiss as she walked up to it, and she was greeted by a louder version of that same electrical hum that she'd noticed earlier. Here however, it seemed to fill the air expectantly, as if not daring to believe that someone was here after all this time. It was the expectant hush of an audience waiting for the play to start, and she was the star.   
  
Glancing around the room nervously, she started at one end of the room and circled her way around, keeping an eye out for anything that might be of use. She already had a feeling that she wouldn't find a car stashed around here, but anything else that might be of use would be appreciated at this point. Get items and go...her brain whispered feverishly. Leave as soon as you can.  
  
And she would have too, had it not been for one of the Control Room's stations. As she circled the room looking for anything of value (and feeling remarkably like a grave robber), one station in particular caught her eye. Stopping in front of it, she watched it's holo-screen turn a whirling ball of sand into a lush, green planet. Desert to paradise... The thought, though inconcievable, was the dream of every settler on this planet, and she just might have found the answer in this lost ship. Breathless at this sudden discovery, she reached out to touch the green world before it dissolved once more into the brown one, and jumped back as the station seemed to switch off of screensaver mode and into operational mode. The planet shrunk to one corner, still whirling madly through it's cycles of wet and dry, and numbers and letters flicked across the screen in rapid succession.  
  
After a few moments, the screen stilled to two simple phrases, which she read through slowly to make sure she understood them.  
  
Phase one has successfully ended with a 87% survival rate.  
  
Continue with Phase two? Yes/No?  
  
She watched as her finger hovered over the question, hardly believing this was happening. It was though, and here she was with a chance to do what could possibly be the most important decision ever made in the history of this planet. Everyone knew that the Plants were dying off, and experts in Bernardelli were saying that there were chances that they would all be gone before the end of her lifetime. And here she was with what could be the answer to it all.  
  
She pressed Yes,' and watched as the screen processed this information.  
  
Thank you Dr. Galloway, it printed after a moment, Phase Two implemented. Expected Time: 25:00:00.  
  
With a start, Meryl realized that for better or worse...she had just affected the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet. And although she didn't consider herself devout, she sent up a prayer that she had made the right decision. The right decision...for everyone. Please. Was it really that much to ask?


	4. Dune Running

Disclaimer: Evidently the last chapter made more sense than I thought it did. Well, peoples, I think I know where I'm going with this now. (In other words, a plot came to me in the middle of a dream, and now I can finish this.) To finish off this note I'll be forced to admit (for the umpteenth) that I don't own the characters and I ain't makin' any money offa this. However, if you wanna send me money, by all means...just don't say it was for this.  
  
  
Vash felt sick. Really sick. He couldn't explain the reasons as of why he felt horrible, but he knew it was true. Hell, he felt even worse than he had after nearly dying in the desert. Forcing himself to sit up straighter at his barstool, he turned his head slowly towards his companion, repressing the gag reflex as the room spun around him several times. The insurance girl was slumped over the counter, her half-finished beer beside her forgotten. At the mere sight of the alcohol, Vash gagged again, this time searching for any handy wastebasket. He was unsuccessful though and found himself frantically scanning what he could see of the room he was in, which wasn't much.  
  
You sick again? The man behind the bar sighed, reaching under the counter for the only wastebasket that Vash had not visited that evening. No offense, but you certainly can't hold your liquor mister. That girl's doing much better than you.  
  
After a moment of heaving, Vash used a napkin before looking up blearily at the man. Oh yeah, now I remember,' he thought carefully, slurring slightly even in his thoughts, So that's why I feel so sick.' Some voice in his mind noted that this was a brilliant observation. Pursing his lips carefully, he enunciated as clearly as he could, Yeah, well...then why's she asleep?   
  
the man polished a glass with his towel carefully before setting it on a shelf behind him, She's been taking care of you for the past twelve hours straight. You passed out at least three times on half of what she drank...and she still took care of you the entire time. I don't know of a single person who wouldn't be exhausted after a night like that. You're really lucky, sir. She's a real friend...and like I said before, she certainly has more of a stomach for the alcohol than you. At the last statement, the bartender glanced worriedly at Vash, but at that moment the infamous $$60,000,000,000 Man was merely attempting to keep his surroundings under control. If only the room would stop spinning he'd be fine.  
  
Vash nodded absently and ordered an orange juice. As an afterthought, maybe the drinking binge in Meryl's absence wasn't such a great idea. For him that was. Millie wasn't fazed by drinking (much like a certain preacher Vash could name), but he certainly wasn't up to her standard of drinking. After getting his drink, he carefully sipped it, warning his stomach to accept it and pleading silently with the orange juice to get rid of the horrible aftertaste that seemed to be coating his entire mouth. After a few minutes of silent sipping, he gave up and put the juice aside. He'd have to give in and ask Meryl for her patented cure for hangovers (tasted awful, but it worked), it might take a little begging on his part, but--  
  
Clearing his throat, he asked the bartender, Excuse me, but did a lady come in here looking for my friend and I? An image of Meryl finding them passed out in a bar came to mind and he winced, She's short with dark hair and white clothes...and she might have been angry. Might have been angry? Now, THAT was an understatement if he'd ever heard one.  
  
The bartender looked up for a moment before returning to polishing the glasses, No. Just the regulars last night. He chuckled, Although the guy on shift before me was claiming that Vash the Stampede was here last night. He really seemed terrified, poor guy. He always was the excitable type. Vash winced. As if the outlaw himself would ever come to a rundown bar in the middle of nowhere. That's a laugh.  
  
Did he say who he thought the outlaw was?  
  
the man lifted a glass to his eye and looked for spots, Vash jumped. Don't worry, I'm not gonna turn you in or anything. Even if you are who he thought you were, you're too sick at the moment to do much in the way of natural disasters...and besides, after last night, I feel more pity for you than fear. With that, the man turned away and began cleaning out the ashtrays lined before him.  
  
Vash had a feeling that the man had seen more of his inner feelings while he was drunk than Vash normally let anyone see. He tried to recall what might have sparked the man's comment, and was greeted with a bit of a dream sequence from the previous night.  
  
_  
Vash, take care of Knives.  
  
A tear-stained face...  
  
  
  
A door shut...  
  
  
  
Shot into infinity...  
  
  
  
A sea of stars above, a sea of fire below...  
  
  
  
An odd smile backlit by a fiery horizon...a sea of lives lost on an oceanless planet...  
  
_  
  
  
Even just thinking of it after all this time caused his eyes to burn. Sighing heavily, and thinking more clearly than he had for the past twelve hours, he said one last thing to the man before pushing off of the stool and walking towards the stairs. Thanks, mister. People like you are few and far between. The man looked up sympathetically before continuing on with his job.  
  
  
After another shower, he felt immeasurably better, and while rooting through his bag for clean clothes, he came across a note from Millie.  
  
_Mr. Vash,  
  
Your coat is on the dresser in Senpai's and my room. If Senpai is still sleeping, please be quiet when you pick it up.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Millie Thompson_  
  
Smiling at Millie's childish signature, he frowned as he considered what it said. So Meryl hadn't contacted Millie after leaving them to go to town? Did that mean she was still out in the desert somewhere? What if she was hurt? She was all alone, and he knew from experience that being hurt and alone in the desert was a very dangerous situation situation indeed...   
  
Don't let your imagination get out of control, he reprimanded himself, She's a big girl, she can take care of herself. But she should be back by now, the voices in his head clamored. You know it, don't deny it. She might be in trouble.  
  
She's probably just in her room sleeping, she must've gotten in too late to go looking for us. He kept this mantra up as he walked over to their door. As quietly as he could, he opened their door and peered in. Before him, the bed lay empty and undisturbed. Meryl's pink suitcase was nowhere to be seen. To one side of the door, the dresser sat with his coat folded neatly on top. With this sight his heart sank with the certain knowledge that wherever Meryl had spent the night, it hadn't been in town.  
  
An hour later he was saddled up and ready to go. He'd arranged with the bartender to have Millie taken up to her room, and for their rooms to be held for one more day. Thus, with the Thomas watered and fed and with his head somewhat clearer than before, he felt relatively ready to go and locate the mysteriously missing Ms. Stryfe. He would have felt much better about the whole situation if he hadn't been so weak, but he figured that dehydrating yourself, and then getting hopelessly drunk within the space of two days could do that to a person. However, he felt healthy enough that riding around on a thomas for a couple of hours wouldn't kill him, hopefully, and besides, what if she was in real trouble? Who else would go out and find her?  
  
Shading his eyes against the brilliant light of the twin suns, he carefully pulled on his sunglasses and clucked the Thomas out of town in the direction they had come. He was hoping she wouldn't be that difficult to find, because he was beginning to feel really woozy...  
  
His hopes were unfounded as he soon discovered. It was two hours before he even found a trace of her location. The clue he finally came across was in the form of Thomas tracks across the sand, which he followed happily until he found her Thomas standing unattended, nipping on a patch of tough desert grass. It's reins dangled behind it uselessly, and he gulped.   
  
A half an hour later, after chasing the other Thomas down and tying it to his own saddle, he was off again, this time following the tracks that Meryl's Thomas had made in it's flight across the desert. Although the wind had erased the clarity of the prints, he could still follow their line across the dunes, heading for where he supposed she might be found. His mind was frantically going over the possible scenarios that might have led to her loosing her Thomas. It was not looking good. And, he noted, he was feeling weaker by the hour. Evidently he wasn't as well as he had thought he was, not that that was any surprise.  
  
He rode in silence, his thoughts crowding his mind. The wind was hot and dry, and it seemed to be sucking the moisture out of him. Even the wind is hungry for water, he noted dryly, even the wind--   
  
He stopped the Thomases suddenly, and flipped around in the saddle to stare behind him. No, he had not been imagining it, in his reverie he had failed to see the tracks end, and he had been riding for who-knows-how-long without any tracks to guide him. He had no idea as of where to go from here.  
  
he cursed before wheeling the Thomases around to head retrace the tracks. When had he missed it? As he took off, a nearby noise caused him to pause and turn back. The dune next to him began to shudder and shake, the dust on top falling to the base of the dune. Fighting to keep the animals under control even at this distance from the disturbance was incredibly difficult and it took all of his concentration and energy not to get thrown.  
  
A beam of pure white light shot out of the dune, straight towards him--  
  
_She went looking for a distant light--_  
  
--and enveloped him. He squinted and held the reins of the two scared Thomases in check. Silhouetted against the reflected light of the two suns, a figure approached him. It was a slender figure, wearing a shipsuit, and walking towards him rapidly. Behind the figure, the light flashed once more before closing behind her and burying itself under the sand once more. The Thomases whickered in fear as the ground rumbled beneath them.  
  
After all these years, after all the tears, here she was. He realized wearily that the Thomases had stopped bucking and bleating and were now standing somewhat nervously as they watched the figure approach. ...You're back...  
  
The strain of the past few hours fell away, and he relaxed, realizing how tired he truly was. How very, very tired. It seemed like it had been forever since he had slept. When had he last slept? Had he ever truly slept since that day?  
  
In one graceful motion he slumped over and fell out of the saddle, his face burying itself in the sand. From a distance he heard someone yell his name, and then there was a blessed silence. A golden silence where he sat with Rem and talked about his future. A silence where he dreamed of red petals thrown in the wind. A quiet where even the feel of someone calling his name and cradling his head while forcefeeding him liquid didn't disturb him.  
  
_Rem, what will happen to everyone?'  
  
They will live on the planet we choose.  
  
And Knives, you, and I?  
  
We will live there as well.  
  
What will we do?  
  
You will have to find your own paths in life. What you do is entirely up to you, but you must always keep those who are affected by what you do in mind.  
  
Vash nodded at this, before looking into the infinite distance of blue.   
  
She seemed slightly distracted.  
  
What will happen to me?  
  
She glanced over at him, watching the way he sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, and thought before she answered, What happens now depends on what you choose to do. As I've told you before, your life is completely open. However, a wrong decision could end it all right here. Open your eyes Vash. Open them now, and work with her. Something is wrong.  
  
Vash turned to her, but she was gone._  
  
Vash, come on! Wake up. I'm not tall enough to lift you into the saddle without your help. You need medical attention, and we're only going to find that in town!  
  
Forcing his eyes open, he found himself staring into Meryl's face. She was watching him carefully, and when she saw his eyes open, her breath escaped her in a sigh of relief. Found you, he managed to croak, realizing how reminiscent this was of the events of the previous day. It was almost eerie... He grinned weakly before trying to get up.  
  
Glaring at him, she helped him to stand up and get into the saddle after about ten minutes of struggling and resting. All the while, he could hear her muttering curses, most of a variety that he had never heard uttered by Miss Prim and Proper herself. Hell, he hadn't even heard of some of them, which made him wonder slightly. However, he was entirely too weak to wonder for long. Instead he tried to focus on keeping his balance. Smooth rescue, Vash the Stampede,' he thought tiredly, before allowing her to tie the reins of his Thomas to her own saddle. As a final precaution, she strapped him into his saddle, shoving padding between him and the ropes tying him in so that he didn't chafe too badly...or something. he muttered, before leaning back in the saddle and grinning tiredly at her, I guess the rescue effort didn't really work out like I thought it would. God, he felt weaker just saying that.  
  
She mounted the leading Thomas and turned back towards him. Vash the Stampede, sometimes I wonder about you, she sighed. Millie should have come, not you. You could have killed yourself.  
  
So you're not angry?  
  
Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe I don't know. My mind is so muddled right now, but the main concern is to get you to town and to see a doctor. With that, she kicked her Thomas and sent it on a beeline towards town. Keeping the Thomas at a fast trot, she glanced back at the man in red. He seemed to have fallen asleep again but still she whispered, Thank you, anyway, before turning back to driving the Thomas onward.  
  
Behind her, Vash smiled slightly, before adjusting his position slightly. De nada, he grinned, before lapsing into sleep.  
  
Ahead of them, town shimmered like a mirage in the afternoon heat.  
  
  
----------------------------  
  
Mild translation note: According to what Spanish I've taken, the phrase De Nada,' while it is literally translated as of nothing,' is actually used as the English phrase, You're Welcome. It's only in there because I like the sound of it, so don't ask how Vash knows Spanish.


	5. Drinking Lessons

story1chap5

Disclaimer: Don't own Trigun. Do own this story however, so please refrain from doing... unnatural things with it. (Don't ask, I'm writing this disclaimer at 3 in the morning to the theme of Mortal Kombat... it's not an environment conducive to coherent thinking, if you get my gist).  
  
-----------------------------  
  
You did what?! Two figures stood in the hallway, the taller of the two cringing under the smaller one's tirade. Millie, I left you in charge of keeping him out of trouble, not in charge of barhopping with him while he was still recovering from his last idiotic escapade! Behind Meryl, a picture was rattling in its frame, but Millie didn't think that this was a good thing to point out to her partner at this point. Okay, okay, I can see how THAT man might have confused you into thinking that a drinking contest was acceptable while I was gone.... but Millie, for the love of God, why on the company credit card?! Despite the reasonable phrasing of that last question, it was very evident to Millie Thompson that her Senpai was not thinking very reasonably. She also highly suspected that the color of her Senpai's face wasn't a healthy shade for her to have.  
  
Millie mumbled something under her breath. Although it was very apologetic, Meryl didn't seem to think it was enough. Hmm? What exactly was that supposed to be? Why don't you try saying it louder?  
  
Sorry. The credit card was my idea because, well because Mr. Vash's idea was just plain wrong. Attempting to discourage any further questions down that route, Millie recalled Vash's idea.' When the subject of their impending bill had first popped up, they both had had more than their share to drink already. Vash had then decided that the only plausible way to pay off their debt was to pawn off Meryl's belongings. The only way a very drunk Millie could convince him that this wasn't a very workable idea was to point out that if he followed through on this, Senpai would be forced to go clothes shopping, and didn't he recall what happened the last time? After a few nervous twitches on his part, he agreed with her that Bernardelli was the only answer.   
  
And what was Vash's idea? Meryl's hands were on her hips and one foot was tapping out a staccato rhythm on the hallway floor.  
  
Millie wished for the fiftieth time this conversation, that she had as ready an excuse to not be here as Mr. Vash. She was horrible at lying, but sometimes she was forced to out of necessity. I don't remember. I think it involved the woman in Room 3B though. _Don't ask Senpai, please don't ask..._   
  
Her psychic energy seemed to work this time, for Meryl accepted the lie with a vague sounding threat towards Mr. Vash, ending with her usual rant about his irresponsible skirt chasing.' Although Millie highly suspected that her Senpai liked Mr. Vash as more than a friend, there wasn't a chance in H-E-Double Hockey Stick of getting her to admit it.  
  
Senpai was about to begin dissecting another portion of Millie and Vash's evening on the town when their discussion was interrupted by a cry of pain from Vash's room. Before Millie could even react, her partner had dashed through the door to his room, an expression of panic on her face. Following close on her heels, Millie arrived in the room in time to see Vash clutching his arm in great distress while the doctor stood on, his expression one of slight amusement.  
  
What are you doing to him?! Meryl screeched, darting over to Vash's bed to examine an area around his elbow that he was clutching. As her head dipped down to examine the area closer for the problem, Vash looked over her back towards Millie and gave her a conspirational wink. Confused now, Millie glanced towards the doctor who merely grinned wider, a veritable Cheshire Cat with a stethoscope.   
  
Crossing the room towards her, the doctor whispered in her ear confidingly, We heard your partner harassing you out there. Vash decided to assist' you when it looked like you weren't going to pull through. He smiled again again, You guys bought me a drink last night. I owe you. Nodding vaguely, Millie recalled offering to buy everyone drinks at least once... no, make that twi--oops, um maybe three times. Gulping slightly, she peered around the doctor to where Meryl had stopped examining Vash's arm and had started berating him for rescuing' her. Out of Meryl's view, he gave Millie the thumbs up.'  
  
So, is Mr. Vash okay?  
  
He's extremely weak from dehydration, but he seems okay. However, if he is planning on ever recovering, he's going to need his sleep. Therefore, I suggest that you two ladies go and get yourselves something to eat while I discuss future precautions with my patient. The doctor watched as both Millie dragged Meryl out. Despite her best effort, Meryl's attempt at an unconcerned look was failing miserably and it was obvious she was really worried. The door shut behind them and you could hear through the door as Millie dragged Meryl away from the door and down the stairs, talking about how nice a good dinner would be.  
  
After a few moments of silence, Vash weakly asked the other occupant of the room, So Doc, what's my actual prognosis? Sinking deeper into the bed, he closed his eyes. God, it's so bright in here.  
  
Vash, the shades are drawn and the lights are off. This is as dark as the room gets at sunset. The doctor sighed wearily before crossing to the bed and sitting on the side. You really shouldn't lie to them like that. That one really cares for you, she deserves to know.  
  
Know what? That I don't know what's wrong with me, and neither do you? Vash's voice was too tired be anything but flat. There's nothing to know, really. Nothing except that I'm too tired for simple dehydration--  
  
Vash, you're not dehydrated. I've seen you dehydrated, and this isn't it. What happened in the desert?  
  
--and I'm getting more tired by the minute. Vash finished his sentence without acknowledging the doctor's question. What am I supposed to say? That if I get much weaker I'm going to die? No. She would blame herself, and I can't have that.  
  
Maybe she would blame herself, but she's an adult. She deserves the truth. You don't need to shield her like some child. Now, answer my question, what happened out there?  
  
Vash glared at the physician, shading his eyes carefully. Fine. She found a SEED remnant. It wasn't a Plant ship or a portion that would have carried civilians. It looked to be vaguely military, but not carrying weapons, if that makes sense.  
  
Not really, but then I never really understood all of that technology. Do you want me to call up Max or Sensei?  
  
No. I don't like calling people up out of the blue simply because I don't know what's going on. If worst comes to worst I can check in with them, but hopefully it won't come to that. Just give me a day to get my strength back and I'll deal with it myself. Vash carefully avoided confronting the immediate problem. Slumping down further on the pillows, he breathed a heavy sigh before smiling slightly, She'd kill me if she knew, but could you make sure that those two aren't having any problems? I don't want them to-- Yawning, Vash slid further down into the bed without finishing the sentence. He was having problems keeping his eyes open, so tired...  
  
The physician watched him carefully until Vash was fully asleep. Then, checking to make sure that Vash was not going to freeze during the night, he carefully stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Behind him, Vash the Stampede was in a deeper sleep than he had been in since-- well --since he could remember having a peaceful night's sleep. Certainly since before July. He was.... so very, very tired. Tired enough to let go. Let go of what? Of everything, something deep within told him. It's so much easier that way...  
  
_The lady looked down at him carefully. He missed her so very, very much. They had so much to catch up on, so many years she'd missed. Opening his mouth to speak, he found himself asking a question he had asked so many years ago.  
  
Rem, what happens when people die?  
  
She smiled down at him briefly before directing the question at his sibling. Knives, what do you think happens? She was always trying to draw his twin into their conversations. Some attempts were more successful than others. The concept of death made it an almost sure bet that Knives would have something to say.  
  
Knives glanced over at Rem and Vash, before deigning to speak. It depends a lot on how you die. Returning his gaze to the vista around them, he stopped speaking, choosing instead to study the landscape.  
  
Vash frowned at the back of Knives' head. Knives wasn't usually so recalcitrant when it came to his favorite subject. What do you mean?  
  
__ his brother flopped down on the grass, shading his eyes against the light from above, If you die one way it's going to be different than if you die another way. One way will be more painful than another, I guess. It all depends on the how. He paused thoughtfully, then turned his head towards Vash, his face as serious as his brother had ever seen it, But in the end it's all the same.  
  
Why's that? Behind them both, Rem frowned slightly at Vash's curious tone. Death might be a fascination for Knives, but his brother had always preferred to think of things from the life end.  
  
Because in the end, all you have to do is to let go.  
  
Let go of what?  
  
Of everything. Everything and everybody.  
  
_...but he couldn't do that, much as he wanted to. Letting go scared him, because he had so much left to do. So much to tell. The thought of letting go of everything scared him, but the thought of letting go of everyone scared him more.   
  
_Don't you dare let go, Vash. _The spectral Knives warned him before dissolving into the mists from which he'd come. Rem lasted a few minutes longer, just looking at him fondly. He would've spoken to her if he hadn't been so tired, but she seemed to understand that, and so he was at peace.  
  
_There is a major obstacle ahead, Vash. Just keep your eyes on the future though, and never give up. Letting go is giving up, much as you might deny it. Listen to your brother, if only this once. He is right. Don't ever let go._  
  
The dark enveloped him and he thought no more.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Meryl was really worried, but she didn't want to admit it. According to the doctor, who she wasn't entirely sure she trusted but he was the only one in town, Vash was suffering from some form of exhaustion. Fair enough, she guessed. It was true that Vash had been sleeping since their initial conversation after getting back. She blushed slightly as she recalled the panic which she'd burst into his room... only to find Vash complaining about nothing at all. That man, she muttered angrily. If only he'd grow up. If only-- uh oh, dangerous thoughts ahead.' She carefully stopped that line of thought, changing it to one that was much safer. I wonder what Millie's doing?'  
  
This question was anwered a few seconds later as her inebriated partner slapped an arm around her shoulders, giggling insanely. Senpai, do you think Mistuh V-Vash is okay? I mean, he's been in bed all day... Her voice was grating on Meryl's nerves. Millie would be catching hell tomorrow, if only she knew how much hell. Maybe you'd better go up and c-comfort him. Millie hiccuped loudly and grinned like the Cheshire Cat. Oops, I wasn't s'posed to say that out loud, was I? She hiccuped again, drawing the attention of the entire bar.   
  
Millie, please go away. Meryl whispered this at the swaying drunk behind her. Why had she allowed Millie to have one little drink,' simply because they couldn't do anything else right now with Mr. Vash bedridden. Why? Why? Why?  
  
Why, so you can go up and comfort him?' Millie was really, really drunk. This didn't stop everyone from laughing and applauding her partner's wit. Meryl turned crimson, attempting to sink lower on her stool than she could possibly. All she had wanted was to ask Vash about the ship, and to tell both of them about what she might've done... and here she was with a drunk Millie taunting her and Vash too sick to care about lost technologies. Why did things like this always happen to her?  
  
Millie, go away. She hoped her tone sounded flat and one that you couldn't ignore, but by the sounds of the audience's laughter, it probably didn't turn out that way.  
  
C'mon, Senpai, Millie wheedled, Y'know somethin'? He's in the same shape as you. But don't tell him I told you, okay? Millie was stage whispering confidentially in her ear, Wanna know why? Cuz I'm not s'posed to know. Wanna know how I know?  
  
By now Meryl was morbidly curious. Even a very drunk Millie didn't lie very well. How do you know that he's in the same shape as me? What on earth did Millie mean by that anyway. The same shape as her? Damn Millie and her ideas of fun... Damn drunks...  
  
Cuz he talks in his sleep. Meryl jerked up suddenly, throwing Millie off balance. Another man at the bar caught her before she fell, and Meryl stepped off of the stool, helping to steady her.  
  
Talks in his sleep? Wha-? No, Meryl Stryfe, stop that train of thought right there. Good.  
  
Propping Millie up on a barstool, Meryl watched as Millie forgot her conversation and decided to lead the entire room in a rousing rendition of Friends in Low Places. Now might be a very good time to leave. Right,' she thought to herself, Leave while Millie's busy, and go check up on Vash. After making sure that Vash hadn't decided to abandon them,' which Meryl heartily doubted. Even that man couldn't fake being as sick as she'd seen him earlier that day. So, after making sure he was still there, come back downstairs and retrieve her erstwhile partner from her drinking buddies. Damn Millie and her hobbies.'  
  
Meryl climbed the stairs wearily, reaching the top just as Millie hit the chorus. Cringing at her singing, Meryl knocked quietly on Vash's door. No answer. Turning the knob slowly, Meryl peeked in the room. There Vash was on the bed, asleep.  
  
------------------------------  
  
_The room was colder than the rest of the ship, a small tribute to the ice haven that lay just beyond the window Vash was looking through. So many...  
_  
_Whatcha doing? A voice to the side broke the silence, the voice both familiar and foreign. It was an odd combination that Vash never fully understood, but then Knives was an enigma to everyone but himself. Not even his twin could fathom his motives at times.  
  
Rem said that everyone in here had a reason to come on this journey. I was just thinking about what their stories were.  
  
Knives sat down beside Vash, pulling his knees up to his chin, before looking squarely at his brother. Why do you want to know about them?  
  
Because they are alive, and they each have a different story. It seemed to make sense, and Knives nodded at that.  
  
They all have different stories, yes, but their stories all end the same way.  
  
Vash thought he knew where this was leading, but he felt like talking, and Knives was better company than none at all.  
  
They are all mortal. Someday they all die. Knives sighed slightly, watching his breath frost in the air before him. Do you want your story to end like theirs?  
  
Now Vash was confused and a little worried. This was a side of Knives he didn't like seeing.  
  
Don't look at me like that. It's true, we aren't like them. Knives was impatient, he was attempting to get a point across to Vash and Vash wasn't getting it. We will always be forced to keep alert, because if we attempt to live as passively as the humans we will die. And then our story will be exactly like theirs. Vash was confused, and Knives saw this confusion. Why won't you listen to me?  
  
Their surroundings swirled around them, almost making Vash nauseous with its speed. B-because you--  
  
Killed Rem? Is that it? Now Knives was angry. Rem died for you, and now you are going to make her sacrifice worthless by dying on me. He turned to one side, staring at the nothingness that surrounded them. And the ironic thing in this whole situation is that in dying you will be killing me too. And therefore my sacrifice will be made worthless as well. Laughing bitterly, Knives turned back to Vash, a sneer upon his face. Don't go quoting scriptures at me if you're not willing to back them up yourself. You've got to live. If you slip any farther into yourself, you'll never find your way out again. If you lose yourself, everyone dies. Wake up. Listen to me this once Vash.  
  
But he couldn't find his way out again. The mist around him covered his brother slowly, and the last thing he saw of Knives was the pleading expression on his face. As the mist itself went black, his last thought was that he had never seen Knives with that expression. Maybe he hadn't been lying. But it was too late._  
  
---------------------------------  
  
Far away from the small hotel where Vash, Meryl, and Millie stayed, a man flexed his hand experimentally. Something in the back of his mind was alternately screaming and fading. He wasn't sure how much longer he could stand this, the increasing pressure in his mind. And the odd feelings coming from that traitorous hand... Summing up a focus, he asked the one who would know what was going on.  
  
Master. His voice was subservient, it's tone that one of a slave asking a favor of its master. Which he was, in a way.  
  
There was no response, and Legato Bluesummers nearly fainted at the feeling he got from his master's end. Something was wrong here, deathly wrong.   
  
His master's life energy seemed to be escaping his body, leaving behind a husk of what once was Knives Millions.  
  
Legato broke the silence with a pained cry, his enemy's arm throbbing with pain as his fingers dug into it. For the first time since he had met Knives, Legato was completely alone, and he had no idea of what to do.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Meryl eyed Vash from across the dark room. The shutters were drawn to block out the light of the sunsets, but from what she could see, the man was asleep. Drawn into himself, he almost looked like a child, vulnerable and scared. Smiling slightly at the image, she walked over to him to pull the blanket up over his shoulders.  
  
Upon reaching the bed she realized that something was wrong. A faint metallic tang hung in the air. Copper. Ducking down to Vash's level, she brushed the hair back from his face. A dark shadow hung across the pillow, and her fingers touched a faint slick liquid by his ear. Almost running over to the windows, she lifted a shade to light the room. Looking at her fingers, she saw that they were coated in a dark liquid, it's shade impossible to determine in the orange light of the twin suns. Rushing back to his bed, she tilted his head back up. It swung limply to one side to reveal crusted tracks of blood leading from his ears, nostrils, and from the corner of his mouth down to stain the pillow below.  
  
She was panicking, but she didn't care anymore. Was he alive? Holding the back of his head with one hand, she ignored what probably was dried blood matting his hair, and checked for a pulse. So much blood. It was everywhere, made worse by the fact that she couldn't see it clearly in this light. She could taste copper in the air. Was he dead? No pulse. No, there was a pulse... it was very faint though. What was going on? What was happening? Hugging Vash's face to her, she screamed for help as loudly as she could.  
  
She felt more helpless than she had felt in a long time. All around her there were sounds. The strains of music coming from the bar. The sounds of her own harsh breathing. A faint whistling wheeze that was Vash. Twin heartbeats, one pounding and one almost non-existant. The sounds of people running up the stairs. People's fists beating on the door. And one that outlasted them all, her screams for help.  
  
---------------------------------  
  
_ the woman glared at him accusingly, Go. Now. Her hair danced behind her in a wind he couldn't feel.  
  
Rem? I can't. I can't find my way back. Vash's voice was hesitant. The path is gone.  
  
Knives can help. Work together, Vash. Do it for me. Her voice, the same one that had comforted him in dreams so many times before, stopped any further argument. And then, she was gone. However, the dark had faded slightly.  
  
Vash smiled hopefully. He could see the mist again, and that was a start._  
  
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Author's note: I think I'm on crack. If this makes no sense, it's cuz this chapter was written at four o'clock in the morning... on a school day. I'll look over it sometime tomorrow and decide if I left any major points out, so if it's completely nonsensical... don't worry, I'll change it later.


	6. Curiouser and Curiouser

story1chap6

Disclaimer Haiku:  
  
If You've Read This Far  
By Now You Should Know That I  
Do Not Own Trigun  
_  
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A glitter of gold on the pillow beside her..._  
  
So much blood...  
  
_Golden strands against the blood-red sky..._  
  
Check his pulse--  
  
_In the end, everything is red though._  
  
Doctor, his heart rate is highly irregular--  
  
_Nothing can escape that one forever.  
_  
Damn! It's stopped!!  
  
_Not even him._  
  
  
  
_Vash.  
  
**FLASH**_****  
  
Flickering pulses of light danced before Meryl's eyes, moving far too fast for her to decipher. Whispers and gales of voices whipped around her and she did not understand. Her hands were clean now, washed free of Vash's blood, free of the sick sweat that plagued them earlier. Civilizations rose and fell in the time it took to speak a word, and she saw none of it.  
  
With a start, Meryl realized that Millie had been speaking to her for a few minutes now and she had not responded.  
  
A querulous note of doubt in Meryl's voice triggered a sympathetic smile in Millie's face.  
  
If you want to, you can go to bed now. I'll keep watch over Mr. Vash for now. The room around them was dark. Meryl had been sitting here for hours since the doctor and nurses had left the room, satisfied that the electronics and care they had given him were sufficient to keep him alive long enough for them to reach and revive him. Machines to bring him back... like they had when Meryl had screamed for help.  
  
A silence descended before Meryl sighed, I should, shouldn't I? Millie watched Meryl debate without answering. She knew Meryl's answer already, knew that there was nothing that could be done to dissuade her from her decision, and in the end, did not want to tear Meryl from her decision. He's going to be all right, isn't he Millie?  
  
The doctor said he was stable now. He wants to speak with you as soon as he can. He's convinced that nothing will happen to Mr. Vash in the next hour or so. You should go talk to him, he seems to know more of what's going on than either you or me. Meryl was surprised at such an articulate answer from Millie, who had been drunk not two hours before, but she didn't comment.  
  
A low chuckle, completely mirthless, So do you want me to go to bed or talk to the Doctor? She was so tired but there wasn't a chance that she would sleep tonight. Too much was happening at too fast of a pace for her to be allowed sleep. What if, while she was sleeping----no. Stop that.  
  
I think the Doctor knows who Mr. Vash is. Millie's voice was about as light as always, but there was a certainty behind those words that Meryl couldn't ignore. Her partner, while appearing to many as clueless, was one of the finest judges of character that she had ever known. If Millie found the Doctor's connection to Vash to be important, then it probably was. But she was hesitant about leaving Vash...   
  
I'll get you if anything happens, Millie's voice was quiet and understanding. Through the fog that she was viewing the world right now, Meryl saw the kind offer and nodded.  
  
Thanks, Millie.  
  
Millie smiled brightly, It's okay Senpai, you would do the same for me.  
  
Stumbling out of the room on legs too dead to work properly, Meryl went to search for the doctor who had ties to the man in the room she had just left. Despite herself, she was very curious about a man who knew the identity of the Humanoid Typhoon and didn't exploit that knowledge or run in fear.   
  
Just who was the doctor?  
  
------------------------------------------  
  
_Around him, the mists began to fade slowly. Sliding towards dawn, the mists_ _disappeared..._ to reveal a grass covered slope. The faint odor of Spring tickled his nose, and he rubbed it slowly. Where was he?  
  
I see you made it back, a wry voice from behind made him turn. There stood his brother, the image of what he had been at July. Vash reached for his gun, but found it missing. Dumbfounded, he glanced down at himself, finding out only then that he was wearing a shipboard uniform much like Rem's. At his silence, his brother grew wary. Knives cocked his head at Vash carefully, It IS you, isn't it?   
  
Who else would I be? The bitter vein in his voice pulsed dangerously as he answered his brother. Something deep within was begging for him to let go of his tightly held emotions and hurt the man who had been almost solely responsible for everything that had gone wrong in his life since Rem's death. Something deep within him wanted blood, and it scared him.  
  
You're the fourth Vash I've seen today, Knives' voice was tired. Dropping his hands to his sides, he looked up at Vash. So far, you're the only one who hasn't attempted to kill me in the first few minutes.  
  
  
  
Yes, kill. Knives paused to watch Vash's reaction. After a minute of intense scrutiny, he lowered his gaze to the ground at his feet, watching the blades of grass tremble in the spring's breath. Vash didn't know how to respond to the latest in a series of revelations that he barely understood. A moment passed in silence, ending only after Knives scuffed his feet noisily in the grass, springing dew loose from the plants. You never answered my question, Vash.  
  
What question? Vash's thoughts still were largely fractured. It felt as if he was looking through a shattered mirror at dozens of smaller versions of himself acting out similar versions of this same scene. Some managed to kill Knives, some never gave into the impulse, and some questioned as they were doing right now. Watching these people in his mind's eye act out his situation disturbed him, and he decided he must be pretty sick to still be having these nightmarish hallucinations, he decided.  
  
Are you the real Vash? Knives' voice was curt.  
  
Ye--  
  
_A voice in the distance screamed his name._  
  
--es.  
  
Knives looked at Vash somewhat skeptically, but accepted it after a moment. Do you know where we are then?  
  
Vash shook his head, No. I've never seen a place like this before.... at least not one as real as this is. Brushing his hair out of his eyes, he bit his lip, It's so alive. This is like what she wanted. Ignoring the damp of the grass, he sat down, trying to ignore the spinning in his head, or the voices buzzing in the background.  
  
I don't think it's completely real. His voice was somewhat doubtful, a tone which Vash had never really heard on him before. Maybe the real question was, Was this the real Knives?' One couldn't be too careful.  
  
Not real? Then what is this?  
  
I-I don't know. I can't sense anything, I'm just relying on the normal five senses right now. I haven't been this blind since-- He swallowed convulsively, I've never been this blindsighted before. The crack of dry wood under feet sent them spinning around to face the whatever was making the noise in this non-world. Vash's instincts, honed by years of practice, turned before his brother and his eyes were greeted by an empty horizon. A few skeletal trees rose behind him, but there was nothing among them.   
  
Vash asked uncertainly, his eyes widening as the snapping noises descended the slope towards them. There was nothing there though. Nothing. Suddenly, despite the warmth of the spring day, Vash was very cold. Deep within his mind, one Vash approached Knives from the woods, raising his hands in a gesture of companionable peace. Something was very wrong here, Vash thought, not for the first time since the mist had deposited him here.  
  
Knives didn't respond to Vash's query, his eyes darting back and forth between the Vash and the unseen enemy. He tensed as something within him decided upon a course of action, the very idea of being alert and ready for action should the need arise. By the way his hands seemed to be independently questing for weapons of some sort, Vash guessed that he was well aware of the dangers presented here. And something about the way that they moved with unerring certainty towards the most likely weapons made Vash feel like Knives had probably already fended off several similar attacks.  
  
He said I tried to kill him--  
  
In his mind, the smiling Vash lunged suddenly at Knives. The Knives he was with ducked and rolled to the right, narrowly missing the Vash he couldn't see. He watched as they danced between his line of sight and his mind's eye. It was almost poetic, in a twisted fashion. He was watching, something that either wasn't happening, or rather, was happening and he couldn't see it. Even in his dazed state, this line of thought made no sense to him whatsoever. Why was he just watching all this go on? Why wasn't he helping? Most importantly, WHAT was going on? Disregarding thought in favor of action, he forced himself to a crouch, looking at both views of the fight to see a way to save Knives from the actions of the other Vash.  
  
By now, Knives had been pinned by the other Vash, and was busy fending off blows that the angry Vash was throwing wildly at him. In a way, Knives was lucky that this Vash was angry, because the Vash off to the side could see that the angry Vash in his mind's eye wasn't fighting with all of his skills. There-- a missed punch, and there-- a shoddy block by Knives... But now was his chance to help Knives somehow. Now was his chance.  
  
Rising to his feet carefully, he approached the fight cautiously. The Vash couldn't sense him any more than he could sense the other Vash, and his rage was probably distracting him from the fractured views that he saw. Step--  
  
_Kill Knives. Knives kills. Kill Knives. Knives kills. _A voice that was both his and not his, entered his mind. Another step towards the fight, fearing what emotions this would bring.  
_  
Killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill_ The voice insisted. He was forcing himself forward, wishing nothing more than to avoid the ocean of broiling thoughts that he was hearing from the other Vash. Another step and he'd be there... Just one.   
  
Another step. Take the step. Do it now. He tried to think clearly, his thoughts dissispating into the other Vash's thoughts. The pressure on his mind redoubled at his effort to reach the fight, the other Vash-- _ Or are you another me?_ --and stop the fight. His own thoughts weren't reaching the other one, and Knives was loosing the grip on Vash's arm.   
  
I still can't see--'   
  
_Where are you? What are you? Why are you in my head you traitor? Rem was killed by him!!  
_  
-him,' Vash thought carefully, picking his thoughts out from the flood of thought in his head.  
_  
KillKnivesKillKnivesKillKnivesKillKnivesKillKnives_ His other voices insisted.  
  
NO!' He screamed silently, forcing his leg to take that last step. Ahead of him, the fight was continuing, and now it was only a matter of time before Knives would fail to defend himself, and Vash would kill him. Vash kill. He would kill...  
  
_KillKnivesKillKnivesKillKnivesKillKnivesKillKnives_  
  
Kill Knives.' He found himself thinking in rhythm with the voices' mindless chant, before stopping himself in horror. No. No. Nonononononononono!!!' He screamed into the ocean, before forcing himself to take that last step. If he could only somehow reach the other him, he knew he could stop this. If only...  
_  
_A punch thrown in anger, a block set in fear and confusion. Vash didn't know how to stop this senseless violence. He didn't know how to stop himself from attacking Knives without killing himself. He couldn't do anything, his head was filled with hundreds of voices, all versions of himself, and he was teetering on the brink, attempting to hold onto his sanity. The step reached towards eternity, the voices crescendoing as his other foot touched the soil in front of Knives  
  
Knives screamed in pain as the other Vash scooped a rock off of the ground behind him and swung it at his opponent. Another block resulting in a sickening crack in Knives' arm. The voices urged him to allow the other to kill Knives. No,' he stopped them. But what could he do?   
  
_Listen to your brother, if only this once. He is right. Don't ever let go._ The memory of Rem's voice whipped through his mind, expelling the chorus and leaving him with only one option. Following that instinct, he collected his thoughts and used them as a hammer.   
  
Vash said calmly, throwing all of his sense of self into the void that his other selves had occupied previously. And with that one word, the other Vash occupying the space before him, the one he could only see through the shattered glimpses in his mind, that Vash turned around.  
  
And they saw each other for the first time. A thousand unsaid words between the fractured selves winked by. Dropping the rock to the ground, the other Vash climbed to his feet, leaving a panting Knives sprawled behind him. Approaching his counterpart, they studied eachother for a moment, Vash's calming thoughts keeping a tight control over the nameless void.  
  
Thank you. The other said quietly, clapping a hand on Vash's shoulder. Good luck.   
  
With what? Vash was starting to tire, holding his thoughts on one thing for as long as he had was   
  
You're the only I' who can save us. You are least controlled by your emotions, and you also have her blessings. The other's face turned sad, I just hope it's enough. Removing his hand, he started to walk down the slope, away from Knives and Vash.  
  
Who are you? But there was no answer, and Vash watched as the other faded slowly, taking the void with him. What was going on? Why, no--where?  
  
He is you, I think. Turning around, Vash found that Knives had forced himself to stand, cradling his arm against himself. Or a portion of you, anyway. I suspected it before, when you didn't attack me. I think that these are all small fragments of you, and that you are the core Vash that they are splintering off of. He paused, wincing, What ever it is that is causing this--this strange world, I think that you are right near the source. I haven't suffered the effects as much yet, simply because of my location. However, he stared at his feet, avoiding Vash's eyes, It is tearing your very soul apart. Much as I hate to use such a human term to describe this, that is what it is doing. That is why you need to get out of here. Whatever it is, it's attacking us specifically, and you are one of the only ones who can stop it from killing us altogether. If you can escape, that is.  
  
Killing us?  
  
Can't you hear their screams? Knives' voice was quiet.  
  
And then Vash did hear, and it became that much more important to find a way out of here. He had to escape a prison with no walls.   
  
--------------------------  
  
Meryl knocked on the doctor's office door timidly, realizing after a moment that she didn't even know his name. However, a moment later when the door opened to reveal a tired looking man in a rumpled suit. Hello, sir. I'm Meryl Stryfe from the Bernardelli Insurance Company and I would like to speak with you.  
  
I was staying up late, hoping you'd decide to drop by, Ms. Stryfe, or may I call you Meryl? Without waiting for an answer, he continued on, I think that we have a lot to discuss. Vash didn't want to confront you about it directly, but- He was interrupted by a rumbling noise coming from outside.  
  
In a flash, all the lights in the city went out. Every electrical device, every tap in town, everything that made life possible on the planet... Everything stopped working.  
  
--------------------------  
  
Millie was facing the windows, watching the city when she heard Vash cry out from his sleep. Rushing to his bed, she watched as Vash's jaws clenched, biting his lip so hard that he drew blood. Shivering in a fever sweat, he started to seizure. What was going on? Was this a repeat of his earlier episode? Where were the nurses? Where was the doctor? As she watched, Vash's features went slack once more, and he slipped deeper into the coma. Taking a moment to check his pulse, she was relieved to find a faint beat against her fingers.  
  
A moment later, she was thrown to the floor, as the room lit up as bright as day. A faint rumbling rushed towards her, and she stood unsteadily, walking towards the windows in a daze. What was going on? And then she saw....  
  
The plant-- she found herself whispering, touching the glass of the window. Directly in front of her, she could see the Plant pulsing unnaturally. Flashing brilliantly, a pulsing bulb of varying shades of blue and red, she recalled the day that Mr. Vash had stopped a Plant from overheating in Inepril. But he wasn't here to do that, or rather he was here, but still unable to help at all. Watching helplessly, she saw it begin to flash faster, speeding up, with arcs of lightening ricocheting off of the Plants walls. It would only survive for a few more moments at the very most, and there was nothing she could do about it.  
  
It was then that she remembered where she was. Flying across the room, she covered Vash's form with her body just as the Plant exploded and the shock wave blew the windows in. Crying out as a stray shard caught her across the cheek, she watched Vash writhe in pain.   
  
And then there was silence, a silence so deep that she could hear the vague whispers that Vash whispered from the depths of his dreams.  
  
But how can I get out? He whispered softly, before lapsing back into the comatose state he'd been in before.  
  
Millie had no answer for him, only questions, she realized as she sat up on the bed in the ruined room. So many questions...  
  
---------------------------  
---------------------------  
  
Brief Author's Note/Essay/Explanation/Apology/Whatever:  
  
Well, mirth, you certainly badgered me enough to get past the cliffhanger chapter. And here it is, the labor of me slaving over a computer in the wee hours of the morning, listening to soulful 80s toon soundtracks (lemme get a cheer going... go gummi bears theme song *coff coff*... whee...) and my ever beloved Gilkyson and Cutrufello cds.   
  
God, I've decided I'm never ever doing a fight scene between two of the same characters ever again. Action isn't my strong suit, and interaction between two of the same people is freaking difficult. And why am I doing this to what was s'posed to be a light Trigun fic?  
  
So, did this chapter clear any questions up? I didn't think so. Just be assured that there is a reason for all of this (at least I hope so, otherwise I'm gonna look like an idiot). In other words, this confusion (or at least my own) should be cleared up soon... just as soon as I figure out how much more this fic's gonna take.  
  
Next up: The Doc, and Meryl's dilemma, and a longer chapter.


	7. Mirror, Mirror

Disclaimer: _______________________________________________.

This chapter is dedicated to the fine people at Hermiston Foods, and the owners of the Reser's 'Big Burrito,' without which I would never have survived the grueling nights it took to finish this. 

z------------------z

  
This room had once been a haven among the stars for life. It had been a self-contained unit, a system of air, water, and life that defied the vacuum of the heavens in order to land upon this dusty world.

Only one day ago, this place had felt dead. Deserted by those who had captained it, it had been abandoned for a better tomorrow, one might say. And then... SHE had come. SHE had started a process, deep within the bowels of the machine. The machine, vast and terrifying as it was, was only a cog in the following processes, a cog and a focus.

Within the room, a glowing console numbered the various planetary statistics, measuring such commonplace things as temperature and humidity next to undecipherable script. Meryl wouldn't have known what it all meant, but Vash would've had an idea. He would have seen the console and immediately moved over to the section that pertained to them most, the countdown. Second by second, the time flowed in even sweeps, marking the time till the change.

Tick. One second down.

Tock. Another gone, never to return.

It is said that time stands still for no man. And indeed, the time remaining for Stage 2 had dropped from 25:00:00 to a mere 3:00:00. And still the clock marched on.

Tick.

Deep within the realm of his dreams, Vash the Stampede let out a ragged breath as Millie watched on. Outside, the area where the plant had been still flared up occasionally, sending the locals into a panic.

"What just happened?" she asked no one in particular. Biting her lip nervously, she wondered how she could feel so alone in the middle of the city. Even more so, how could she feel alone when Mr. Vash was not two feet from her.

He had no answers, and she sat silently within the dark room, listening to Vash breathe quietly, as she awaited her partner's return.

Tock.

z-----------------z

"What was that?!" Excited voices raised in the hallway outside of the room came through the walls. Footsteps pounded past the door as panicked residents fled the safety of their homes to discover what had knocked out the electricity and caused the explosion.

"It came from the Plant!" One of the voices yelled, starting waves of speculation as of what was going on. Somewhere nearby, a child was crying while confused adults discussed what the situation was. Scatters of conversation flickered through the room, vague and indistinct. 

"Uhhhh," the man before Meryl groaned, a patch of darkness before her. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah," Meryl croaked shakily. After the explosion had ended, she had been thrown against some piece of furniture, indistinguishable from the others in the dark. "Where's the door?"

"Near you." The man groaned again. "Look, could you open it and come here and help me out? I think I'm pinned under the couch." As Meryl felt around for the door, he chuckled hoarsely, "It looks like our little 'discussion,' was a day late and a dollar short."

There. That was the doorknob. Turning it, Meryl propped the door open to the hallway beyond, letting the light flood into the room. Her companion was indeed caught under the couch, and after a few moments of wrestling with it, she managed to free him from his prison.

"What do you mean?" She panted, after righting the couch and following him out into the hallway.

"First, let's go outside. It's too dark in here." So saying, he closed and locked the door, pocketing his keys.   
  
Outside, the night was filled with the sounds of people everywhere. Screaming, crying, speaking comfortingly...every emotion that Meryl had ever seen was displayed for public viewing. "What's going on? What happened here?" she asked, her eyes scanning the buildings around her. There was a harsh glow against the city's skyline, and smoke boiled above the buildings in angry clouds of ash and soot. Interspersed with the smoke there were lightning flashes of blue and red emanating from the remains of the Plant.

"The Plant--" her companion whispered, "Look, it's...gone."

Once before, in her travels with the Humanoid Typhoon, Meryl had been witness to a Plant that everyone had thought was going to explode. Vash had stopped it in time, so she had not been privy to the aftermath of a Plant malfunction...but this...

Somewhere to her left, a person cried out in pain, the unfortunate recipient of a piece of shrapnel. In the darkness in front of her, a child was screaming endlessly for his parents. How much pain had this caused the occupants of this city? How much--

"This gives us even less time than I'd imagined," her companion interrupted her thoughts, his voice taking on a forced business-like air. "Come on, let's get away from these people, there are some things you need to know. We'll talk while we walk." She nodded, her eyes tired, as she turned away from the scene of destruction.

"First off, my name is Tom Baker. I know Vash from his arrival on my ship. He helped me set up a new life on this planet after I was declared 'unhealthily violent,' by the shipfolk and exiled to this world."

"Ship? Shipfolk? What are you talking about?"

"I used to live on single SEED ship that still works. It travels in the middle of a storm--"

"SEED?"

"It," he sighed impatiently, gesturing wildly with his hands, "It's not important. I only told you that so that you would understand how I knew Vash. I'm not a bounty hunter, and I'm not with the Feds. I'm just someone from his past...of sorts." Stopping at a nearby bench, he sat down heavily, inviting her to a seat next to him. "That's not important though. What I need to know is, what did you do on that ship in the desert?"

"What?" Meryl was startled. How did he know?

"Don't look at me like that. Vash told me that he found you near a ship. He didn't know what the ship was, didn't recognize the type it was, but he could see that much."

"Oh." So Vash had known. It was amazing he had recognized anything at all in the state he had been in. "The ship? I don't know. I don't know what was going on there, and I don't know what I did."

"So you DID do something?"

"Yes."

He looked up at the sky, his eyes trailing over the stars. "Well, I guess that answers some of my questions." Looking over at her he continued, "I have one question though. Why? Why did you do it, not knowing what it was?"

She felt very small. Of all the scenarios that she'd imagined herself in, explaining her actions aboard that ship...this had never been one of them. Describing to a stranger the intense feeling of-- She had no words to describe what she had felt then, only that it had been addictively powerful. "I--I thought that it was something that could help this world." She pictured the hologram of the green world within her mind's eye. Even now, that image of life still brought a chill to her spine.

"But you didn't know what it did. Or do you?"

She shook her head. "Not really." And with those words, she began the story of what had happened on that ship. He was silent mostly, intermittently stopping her to ask key questions. When she had finished, he gave her a long look before looking away at the smoke billowing above the buildings.

The fires were dying down by now and most of the panicked citizens had found places to be, other than the city streets that is. A few people still lingered, gawking at the destruction caused by the explosion of the Plant, but these few were nothing compared to the crowds before.

"You know...since yesterday, four Plants in cities across the world have gone offline. Two Plants, ours included, have overloaded, resulting in mass destruction. Weather experts across the planet are reporting an increase in wind speed and sudden changes in the directions. Heck...there are even some rumors that this Planet has changed polarities. All within the last day or so." He stopped, then looked meaningfully at her.

"I--I see," she stuttered, trying not to think of the probable cause of all of this. She **had** done the right thing...hadn't she?

"I'm not trying to make you feel worse about what you've done...only time will tell if it was the right decision or not. What I am trying to say is that we may not survive the transition if this keeps up."

She nodded. "I know, and since it is my fault, I'll go out and try to stop it. You need to see if you can get Vash out of the state he's in...I think I'm going to need his help before all of this is through. He's forgotten far more about the lost technologies than I've ever known."

Tom Baker, once a member of the technological elite, now a doctor in a small town, shook her hand as she left to go saddle her thomas. "Ms. Stryfe, it has been a definite pleasure to meet you. You are a definite keeper, and I hope that he realizes this before it's too late." That said, he strode towards their hotel in hopes of raising yet another Typhoon to add to their list of growing disasters.

Meryl watched him as he walked away, the last words ringing in her ears. _Meryl...don't read too much into what he said. He doesn't know you...just stop what you're thinking right now._ Looking away, she turned towards the stables to fetch her thomas. She still had a lot of work to do.

Z--------------------z

Vash stopped at the top of a rise, his sides heaving in an attempt to catch his breath. A glance at his twin made him frown, "You're not even red, Knives. I thought that I was supposed to be the travel-hardened one."

Knives looked at him sideways. Despite his best efforts, a corner of his mouth twitched up in amusement. "Maybe you are, maybe you are not. In any case, this--splintering is weakening you, which might explain your inability to keep up with this slow pace."

"Slow pace?!" Vash squawked indignantly. "Okay, so maybe it's not as fast as normal...but that doesn't make it slow!! And besides, who's the one who's been fighting off every single 'splinter-self,' we come across? Me, that's who." Calming down from his outrage for a moment he asked, "What are we even doing?" The back of his throat hurt. He needed a drink. Now. Even though it seemed impossible to need such a physical thing in what Knives was claiming was an unreal world, experience had taught him not to ignore his feelings. Added to the list of woes that lack of water had caused him in the last few days alone, and he was definitely ready for a drink.

Knives considered his question for a moment before answering, "We're looking for a way out." His voice was quiet.

Vash snorted, causing Knives to actually turn towards him. At the curious gaze that his sibling had settled upon him, Vash looked up from his wheezing with a wry grin, "What? Are you expecting some sort of doorway or something? Of course it would have to be labelled 'Exit,' or something, or we just might miss it--"

"A doorway," Knives mused, his expression thoughtful.

"Yeah." Vash stopped his rambling suddenly as he felt himself splinter once more. It was happening more frequently now, and every time it happened he was forced to muddle through the disorientation and weakness all over again. Added to that, they had encountered several more Vash's along the way, and it required serious effort on his part to stop them. It was no wonder then that he was seriously tired right now. He had every right to be.

"Knives," he grated, "Have you even splintered yet?" His knuckles were white, clenched around his knees. Knives looked at him concernedly.

"Yes," he replied simply, "Three times." He paused, "Is it getting worse?"

"Y-yes." Vash gritted once more, forcing his thoughts back into his head. "Will we--have t-to fight any of you?" A mental snap later, and his thoughts were once again his own. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"I don't think so. I think any splinter emotions will be directed at humans." Placing a hand on Vash's shoulder, he helped his brother to stand upright. "In any case, I don't think there are any humans here anyway."

"I hate to say this, " Vash sighed heavily, "but for once, that's a good thing." Knives nodded absently, apparently still thinking.

"A doorway," he considered carefully, tasting the words and seeing what images they conjured. But whatever thought it was that he was seeking, he still couldn't grasp it.

"Are you still thinking about that? Come on, we won't get any answers by just sitting here. Maybe we'll find your doorway if we keep moving." Knives nodded slowly and followed as Vash took the lead.

"A door--" he began before being interrupted by a shout from his brother.

"KNIVES, LOOK OUT!!!!" As Knives whirled, he was struck from behind by a splinter Vash.

_I can't take much more of this._ Vash thought wearily, before using his mind like a cannon as Rem had shown him. When he opened his eyes again, Knives was picking himself off of the ground. 

And that's when he saw it. He had a feeling that part of him that he had just fought had been a distraction, something used to weaken him while the rest of his selves got into position. Which he was...and they were, so in essence, their plan had worked out perfectly.

He lay before himself... Every rip...every single tear that his soul had ever experienced, every fragmented mirror that he had ever produced... They had Knives and him surrounded. Vash had a feeling that he had been tracked by his splinters, and their proximity had caused him to fragment even more...thus increasing their strength... It was a win-win situation for them.

There must have been twenty of them, each different in his own way. _Or different in my own way, if I prefer to think of it that way._ Some were wearing the red coat that was Rem's legacy. Some wore ordinary clothes. Some had long hair, some short. Some were scarred...some not.

"Knives," he rasped.

With a startled gasp, Knives turned around from surveying the countryside and saw the army gathered before them. "We have to find this doorway fast. This looks to be the end."

Vash nodded, wiping the sweat from his forehead silently. He gathered his thoughts carefully, calculating who to strike first. After a moment of this, he stopped, putting one gloved hand to his head with a grimace of pain. "Knives, I just can't do it. There's too many of them." Knives frowned, and Vash continued, "And what's more, they are all gathering into one."

"What...gathering into one?" He paused as he drew back from the crowded slopes. "Vash, what's going on?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw his Vash fall to the ground, clutching his head.

"Too...many..."

The others had begun merging, emerging into one singular Vash at the base of the hill. His coat was the color of clotted blood, his eyes were those of the killer that so many had come to fear. A silver gun was in his hands, the barrel of it smoking over as the Vash stood upright, letting the wind catch his coat.

"KNIVES." The voice of that thing wasn't _was_ his brother's voice. Not more than a whisper, the power behind that voice was enough to make Knives jump slightly. _Nervous?_ He chided himself silently.

"Stay away from--

_me_--

him," the creature warned darkly. "I'll deal with you later."

"No," his Vash whispered, his shoulders shaking. "No."

"Vash, focus on Rem," internally, Knives shuddered at the thought of using that name to shave his brother. But she had an unusual effect on him... So it just might work. He looked at the core Vash, "Vash think of her." That Vash shivered once at the mention of her name and went still, his eyes trained on the other.

The other frowned at Knives, "How dare you invoke her name, murderer." It smirked, a shadow hanging behind its eyes. "It won't work though. His--

_my_--

power," he gestured at the core Vash," is nothing without us and any advice she can give him--

_me_

is useless. Face it. It's over."

Knives forced himself up. "No," he stated flatly. Something was about to happen, he was sure of it. That something would most likely result in his sibling's untimely demise...but not if he could help it. "No!" he repeated, staggering towards the two. During the course of the conversation, the other seemed to have made his way up the slope to where the weakened core lay. Knives had to stop this. Now.

Two sets of eyes bored into him. One pair, the sad blue-green of the man known as Vash the Stampede, looked defeated and apologetic. "Vash--" he began as he ran towards them. The mirror Vash's eyes were hard. They were the eyes of one who has lived too long and seen too much...and Knives feared that his own eyes were frighteningly similar to them. They were dead inside, angry outside, and full of too much hatred to belong to his beloved brother. His eyes gleamed slightly, still giving the vague impression of glowing. And Knives understood.

"Diablo."

The devil in red with his silver revolver. The silver revolver that Knives himself had made for his brother, to be used as a weapon against the humans...and now-- _Focus on the task at hand. Ignore the possibilities._

After a moment of silence, the other Vash--

_No, he is not Vash...he is the Diablo._--

reached out and touched the shoulder of the man on the ground. While it seemed a tender gesture, Knives' eyes, trained at spotting power moves and plays, could see the last of the core's willpower and strength being used up. Then, with a slight bubbling in the space around him, the core was absorbed into the fractured mirror-self.

Knives stopped cold at the sight. He had been too late.

The mirror stood silently for a moment. He was profiled against the sun, his eyes closed, a slight smile upon his face. Knives shivered. "What now?" He was running out of options and out of time. How could he save his brother and get them out of this place before it killed them? His reverie was shattered by his brother's voice coming from that monster.

"You know, this **is** Earth. A version of it anyway."

Knives nodded after a moment. "Yes. I knew." And he had...somewhere in the back of his mind. It made sense that this would be the only other planet that was known to have life.

_Well...not the 'only.'_ He amended silently.

"This is Earth," the splinter-being laughed bitterly. "She spent the remainder of her life missing that planet...and you, her murderer... You get to experience what she never did."

Knives' eyes narrowed. If this devil was spouting Rem, then the chances of him getting irrationally angry at Knives were much higher. And gauging by the route the conversation was taking--he might already be at the point of no return. He swallowed nervously, before realizing that the other was waiting for an acknowledgement of his statement.

"Yes. I did." Knives reviewed the possible responses to this answer slowly, not liking any of them.

"You feel no remorse for your actions. This is not surprising...for sorrow is a human emotion. You are not human. You are a monster. It is best for this world...if I just remove you from it." Smiling slightly, he drew his weapon and faced Knives. Then he paused as if considering something. Raising one finger in front of him to stop Knives from moving, he fished around in his pockets for a few moments. Knives waited, hoping that Vash would return to take control. After a minute of rooting, he emerged triumphant with a pair of yellow sunglasses, which he carefully put on. His smirk grew. "Now, I'm ready," the other said mockingly, cracking the knuckles on one hand slowly.

Knives tensed.

The other smiled.

Knives' eyes focused on the hand with the gun, waiting for the inevitable twitch of the finger.

The other's sunglasses glinted, and his Cheshire smile widened.

One heartbeat.

Stillness.

Two heartbeats.

Stillness.

Three heartbeats.

Vash squeezed off three shots in rapid succession. As Knives ducked to avoid them, two flew by, one so close that he felt the wind of its wake on his cheek. The third buried itself in his shoulder, blowing him onto the ground.

"Knives, Knives..." the other laughed lightly, "How can you possibly have survived this long if you can't even dodge bullets?" Knives winced, trying to get himself off of the ground before Vash could finish him off.

z---------------------z

**>>FLASH<<**

_He was drowning._

Silence. Caught at the base of the pool. Enveloped in the cold dark of forever, he sat and watched his own reflection from the depths. It was a peace of the sort one only finds within the eye of the storm. Peace...and solitude that he'd spent his whole life searching for, it had eluded him until this very moment. He could just sit here forever if he wished, something deep within him whispered. Just sit here and watch the stars spin by in their lonely paths. Except...where were the stars?

His reflection stared back at him without answering. It's eyes were devoid of any readable emotions...and it hurt to look at it.

_Wait a minute...that's not a reflection...that's me... But how?_

At this thought, the reflection smiled back at him, sending a chill down his spine.

**>>FLASH<<**

z----------------------z

"SNAP OUT OF IT!" Knives rolled to one side as another shot buried itself into the ground where he had been lying a moment before. "You're killing yourself as well as me! Vash, take control of him!"

"Monster! You killed Rem, you bastard! You of all people deserve to die for the pain you've caused others!" That... Thing that wore his brother's guise--

_Face it Knives, deep down, he too is your brother._--

spun acrobatically, using his brother's natural grace to catch Knives across the jaw with a kick. Knives heard something crack and a few hot drops of blood stained his ship uniform. Coughing violently, he wiped his mouth, ignoring the metallic taste that lingered on his teeth. "Vash?" he questioned softly, trying to reach behind the mask.

"I AM VASH!!" The monster screamed at him. Sometime during the fight he had lost his glasses, and it was because of this that Knives could see what the hatred had triggered in the splinter-Vash. His power had become so concentrated that it was beginning to overflow. This Vash's eyes glowed brightly, the electric light casting harsh shadows across his face. Knives swallowed once before trying to reach his brother once more.

z--------------------------z

**>>FLASH<<**

There it was again, that faint hint of someone calling his name. This one was a different voice though.

He listened harder and it went silent. He was alone again. Alone...in the dark.

How did he get here? Vash couldn't rightly remember, instead only recalling being lost in the desert for days.

_>vash<_

A whisper again.

No, that wasn't true, he decided, he could remember more.

A face, framed in black. A nervous look quickly concealed by angry glares. 

Oh yes...he could remember more.

_>Vash<_

He had to escape here. He didn't know where 'here' was, but he knew it wasn't where he was supposed to be.

Where was that though?

_>VASH<_

He couldn't remember.

"VASH!"

The mental screams had gradually gotten louder and louder until he actually had heard them as vocalizations.

He whirled around, his trenchcoat wrapping around his legs. And there she stood...long hair flowing...the heady scent of fresh-cut flowers hanging on the breeze...

"Rem..." he whispered.

"Vash," she smiled sweetly at him. "I wasn't the one calling you. My time is over. Someone else needs you now. Trust your brother." He nodded slowly, watching her fade.

"VASH!" the scream was edged with desperation this time.

"I can't answer you, whoever you are," he whispered mournfully as he sank to the ground once more. "I can't even help--" And he stopped there, considering it. Something in what he had just done was the key.

He started. _Sank._ That was the key.

Memories flooded over him in the next instant, threatening to wash him away from his newfound past. ...The weakness... the desert... Millie... drinking... Knives... the ship... Meryl...

'I did not call you,' Rem's voice echoed through his memory. 'She called you.'

Meryl. Thank you.

Memories now intact, he realized where he must be. This was him. The reflection he had seen earlier was also him. But how could he escape himself?

Vash grinned as he realized the simplicity of the answer. If he had sunk to these depths...surely he could rise back to the surface? The splinter persona was distracted right now, that much he could sense. Maybe if he was careful...  
  
z-------------------z

Knives received a kick to the gut, doubling him over. Gasping for air, his eyes watering, he wondered if this would be the end of him. To die at his brother's hands? Such an unthinkable concept was soon to be a reality.

And then Vash stopped. Wondering if the core personality had gained control, Knives looked up to see the sadistic grin gone from his brother's face. For a moment his spirits lifted, hoping that this insanity was finally over. Until his brother spoke, that was.

"Time to die," Vash levelled his gun at Knives for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day.

The light came then. He knew that light, his brain thought numbly as the Angel Arm transformation began. At this range, the only outcome for him was death...unless he could stop the blast. There WAS a way, he knew, but he didn't have his gun with him.

Or did he? While the light grew, his brain feverishly attempted to contact his body---his REAL body.

Nothing happened.

_>>Knives, this place doesn't exist. The gun is not the trigger here. Use your instincts.<<_

A voice he hadn't heard in one hundred years spoke to his mind. A voice he hadn't thought he'd ever hear again...

_>>Knives, take care of Vash.<<_

That was carefully reworded from that fateful day, he noted dryly as he tried his best to follow her advice.

The gun is not a trigger here.

_Focus._

Ignore the gun.

_Focus._

_>>Trust Vash to break through.<<_

This broke his concentration momentarily. Ignoring the near-complete Angel Arm that of his brother's, he called once more upon the reserves of power that he knew were there...

And broke through the barrier.

As he did, time slowed down for him. He watched carefully as his transformation occurred like quicksilver, readying his weapon in a moment's time.

He watched as the eyes of his opponent suddenly changed, gaining a depth that had been missing while the splinter-Vash had been in control.

He watched Vash nod in understanding, and wink at him.

Then time sped up immeasurably fast...far too fast for him to follow in any sort of logical order.

Twin beams of light raced towards each other, scattering the darkness and destroying the ground upon which they stood. Followed by the cataclysm of light was the sound of something tearing. Then all was silent.

z-------------------z

Silence, followed by heavy breathing. Although the effort cost him, Knives lifted his head to survey his surrounding. There was now a crater surrounding himself and his brother...and between them there lay a rip in reality.

"Knives?" It was Vash's voice, weak but recognizably his.

"Yes?" 

"Good thinking."

"Thank you." He paused, considering not letting the truth out before relenting, "Rem led me to it." He listened as his brother's breath stopped for a moment before continuing on.

"Thanks anyway," his brother grunted as he forced himself off of the ground. Limping over to Knives, he offered a hand to help him up which Knives accepted gratefully. Before Knives could react to such a human gesture, Vash enveloped him in a fierce bear hug. After a few seconds of this, he released his brother and smiled at him. "Well, I've got a world to save. I'll see you on the other side." Smiling openly at his twin, Vash waved jauntily before stepping through the rip and disappearing.

Knives stayed silent for a moment before replying. "I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about when we do meet again." This said, he looked over this false Earth once more. "It's a pity, this is a fascinating place. I almost wish I could stay." But wishes were useless if impossible, and so he stepped through the tear.

It closed up behind him.

z---------------------z

Millie was asleep when Vash awoke, sweet dreams of sugarplums and dark haired priests dancing through her head. One minute, she was lying with her head nestled comfortably between Mr. Vash's pillow and the headboard, her mouth slightly open so as to let out an excess of saliva... The next she was thrown to the floor, blinking in sleepy surprise at Vash, who had jumped out of bed and was standing in the middle of the room with a stunned look on his face.

After a few seconds of her staring blankly at him and him examining himself to see if he was really there, she broke the silence with a yawning exclamation. "Oh! Mr. Vash, you're awake! Senpai will be so happy." As he looked at her disbelievingly, she gave him a sunny smile.

"Where's Meryl?" Millie blinked at the use of her Senpai's name. Mr. Vash didn't do that often.

"She went to check on that ship in the desert. She thinks it's causing all of the problems." Millie smiled at him, before yawning again.

"Problems?"

"Well...um...some Plants have exploded...there are some big storms starting...and um..." Millie paused, trying to think of more disasters that could befall this world. "She wanted me to stay here and make sure that you were okay. That doctor guy is contacting the other towns right now, and Senpai--"

"Is going to need my help," Vash finished her sentence as he flew across the room, gathering up his necessary items. After a few minutes of fighting futilely with the varied and asundry buckles on his coat and bodysuit, he threw it down in frustration and buckled his gun around his pajamas.

"I'm going after her. We've got to stop that ship from doing whatever it's doing. You stay here...it might be dangerous." With that, he ran out the door, leaving a very surprised Millie Thompson lying in a heap on the floor.

A minute after he'd left, she smiled brightly once more. "Hey! Since I can't go anywhere while they're gone, I think I'll go to the bar!!"

She left the room soon after, twirling the company credit card in her hands.

Z--------------------z

Author's note: Okay, long delay between chapters. But, like I promised, this is a longer chapter (much longer...probably should be two, but I can't divide it until I find a good place to do so). Anyway, I just wanted to let y'all know that I'm nearly done with this, so you can believe me now when I claim to have a plot in mind.

P.S. Oh, and Millie was sleeping in a chair with her head on the bed...not in the bed with Vash...just to make that abundantly clear. 


	8. A Mad Tea Party

Disclaimer: S'not like you can do anything about it anyway, even if I did claim that I owned it all. See...you can't find me...cuz I'm an enigma... Nyahh...nyah nyah nyah nyah... *gets hit by a meteor* The end.

z--------------------z

Sand whipped around her in blinding clouds, causing her to shield her eyes against the stinging rain. How could she ever hope to find anything in weather like this? She squinted, attempting to peer through the gray smudge that was the limits of her world.

Storms. He had said that there were increasingly bad storms all over the planet. According to the satellite, entire settlements were being buried- entire towns evacuating at the threat of the monstrous weather phenomena that were circling the globe. This world was going to hell, she thought, smiling bitterly at another thought. 'Of course Meryl, you know what the road to hell is paved with...' But that was just her brooding. Now was not the time to do this--

Rectify the situation at hand and then review her participation in it later. That was the order of business.

She rounded another dune, watching her thomas struggle against the growing wind. Grit was everywhere, in her hair, in her mouth, in her clothes... She felt like she was choking on it as she continued her trek across the desert. 'Now that would be ironic...' she added mentally as she stopped her thomas and dismounted.

"Time to walk," she muttered, hearing the wind toss her words into oblivion. Meryl couldn't see the ground below her from astride her thomas, much less find out where she was in relation to the ship.

Leaning into the wind, Meryl was glad she'd had the good sense to strap her cape onto her saddle. Even though she was far less protected from the elements dressed as she was, the cape would be a sail in weather like this. With her body build, she didn't doubt that a good gust could pick her off of the ground. She didn't doubt it at all.

Where was she? She thought she'd gone in the right direction but maybe she hadn't after all. This wind...this sand was limiting her normally compass-true sense of direction. After all, according to the map in her head, she figured she must be right about on top of where she had found the ship.

But there was no sign of it anywhere.

She paused, frustration and despair warring in alternating bouts. No ship...

Her fist clenched, knuckles whitening as her nails dug into her palms. No ship.

Meryl had been up for over thirty hours by now. Almost a day and a half of constant stress and frustration...she was near her limit. Therefore, it was no surprise that, at a time when she needed to be her sharpest, she could feel herself slipping. There was some factor she wasn't considering here.

No ship.

And then flash of memory hit her.

_The door, rising like the cover to a book out of the earth...._

Maybe it had buried itself again after she'd left... Some vague remembrances of this very thought flickered through her mind, coming and going as if blown by the wind itself. Of course, at the time of this memory, she'd been occupied. Her thoughts had been almost frantically focused on that idiotic man who at the time, had seemed almost hellbent on dying in front of her.

Of course, she DID have to give him some credit where credit was due... He had been trying to save her at the time, as misplaced an action as that was. She smiled slightly. 

But those too were idle thoughts, doing nothing but wasting time. She had her answer now, the ship was underneath the sand. But how to find it? Especially since she couldn't see anything in this wind?

She was on the lee side of the dune, which due to the wind, was drifting over as the sand was blown over from the top of the windward side. 

The windward side. The side of the wind.

If the ship was anywhere to be found in this chaos, the best bet in finding it was on the other side.

If she could brave the wind, that was.

Shielding her eyes with one arm, she fumbled around for the thomas' reins, finally tying them in a loose know around her wrist. The animal bleated once in a fearful protest, but after a few seconds of tugging and soothing whispers, she finally got it to reluctantly follow her.

It was time to enter the rabbit-hole once more. As she crested the dune, her eyes straining in the semi-dark, she thought she understood the White Rabbit's fear.

What if she was too late?

z----------------------z

Vash was in a different sort of trouble. He had left town following Meryl's tracks, praying silently that she was as good at tracking as he thought she was. However, after awhile he noticed a tickle in his mind.

Shaking his head slowly to rid himself of it, he wondered if this was a side effect of the dehydration or the splintering. There was nothing to be done about it though, so he ignored it as best he could, even though it refused to go away. He didn't have time to pay it much heed. As he raced along the dune-tops following the insurance girl's tracks, he noted that the tickle was coming from the direction he was aiming for. He didn't think it was coincidence.

Not long after, he realized that the tickle had grown, becoming more intense. It was now more of a buzz than anything else, an angry noise that was becoming harder to ignore. It was a noise that he was hearing in his mind, over the wind's howl.

And it was still in the general direction that he was heading for.

For a moment he debated. Tracking her would take more time, and was quite possibly impossible with this wind. All of her tracks might disappear in an instant with one good gust...

His instincts told him to follow the noise. Hoping his luck had taken a turn for the better and that his suspicions were right, he followed the mind-sound into the depths of the storm. 

z----------------------z

Meryl paused a moment at the base of yet another dune, her eyes clouding over.

'I'm lost.' She thought she had known the way. She had thought that her skill at tracking would suffice. However, she was, every instinct telling her that the ship was right here...and it wasn't. She could feel the time slipping away, an avalanche of seconds waiting to fall... And there was nothing she could od about it. Nothing she could do... Her flash of inspiration all for naught.

'It should be right here,' she repeated, wondering vaguely if this was the end. Here she was, lost and alone, and Vash would more than likely die...all because of her. All of those settlements gone...because of her. With this hanging over her name, she might have a possibility of getting a reputation much like Vash's. The thought was a bitter taste in her mouth. Ironic, and yet oddly suiting.

Despite her earlier protests, it seemed as if reviewing her actions was the only thing she could do at this time. What had she done? Where had she gone wrong? And why did she have to be so helpless right now?

Deciding that action was the only way to erase these troubling thoughts, she turned slightly to get her face out of the wind's path, she took a step.

And her foot struck metal.

z-------------------z

What had begun as a buzz was now a dull roar. Vash climbed another dune, pulling his thomas up the slope. It was slowing him down, he knew, but he didn't want to let his only companion go just yet. There was only the storm, Vash, the thomas, and the roar. And he didn't want to listen to that just yet.

The roar was composed of many voices, all screaming wordlessly in varying tones. Vash recognized the voices. They were those of the 'ones who live outside of time.' The Plant Angels were screaming as they died.

Tilting his head as if to tip the noise out, he glanced back at his thomas once more. It quivered, swaying as gusts of wind caught it broadside. He had no right to haul it out on this night. Smiling sadly, he unlooped the reins from his hand and turned around, ignoring the sand that was finding it's way into his night clothes.

"Thanks, friend. I'm nearly to where I need to be. You go find shelter somewhere. I'll try to fix this." Tying the reins up on the saddlehorn, he slapped it on the rump. "Go on now, go."

The thomas didn't question this newfound freedom. After a single querying bleat, it took off like a shot the way it had come, heading back towards town. Vash watched it go with an unreadable expression for a moment until the sands covered it up. Then he turned back towards the screams of his kin, his jaw set in a firm line.

'Now it is time to see what this whole thing is all about.' As he forced himself into the wind, he tried not to let his mind wander from the task at hand. Best to stop the storms first...and find Meryl later. Where was she?

z--------------------z

Meryl clawed at the plating on the ship futilely. This WAS the door, she knew...but how to open it she did not know. "Dammit!!" she screamed, her words flying before her. "Dammit! Daaammmmiittt!!" Each curse was punctuated with a frustrated pound on the shell of the ship. Windswept tears streaked her face as she tried to gain entrance.

So close to her goal... Only to be stopped at the door? 

The wind laughed at her cruelly as she let loose another anguished scream.

z--------------------z

Vash paused, collecting his thoughts. It was getting harder to think coherently over the din of the Plants, but this was nowhere near the problems he'd had in the simulated world of before. Nowhere near the problem he'd had engaging himself in battle...

During this pause he thought he heard a noise above the wind's shriek. What separated this one from the others that were already there, is that he could've sworn he heard this one as a physical sound...and not just an impression of torturous pain imprinted upon his mind. Although it had sounded distant, there was no way to tell in this wind-whipped maelstrom of sound. It had come from the direction of the voices.

His mouth went drier than the air around him and he tried to swallow nervously. Had the plants torn a hole in reality much like the one that his brother and himself had done? Was this even reality, or was it just another simulation? His hand involuntarily strayed to the revolver strapped around his waist. Wondering what else could possibly happen to him in the next couple of minutes, he put one foot in front of the other, hearing the voices in his mind approach a crescendo. Vash the Stampede was alert and ready as he followed the screams. This was it.

Around one more dune, he nearly tripped over the source of one of the noises. Meryl lay sprawled on the ground, pounding her fist into something metallic, spouting obscenities like a trucker. Her thomas stood to one side, it's reins dangling uselessly beside it. It looked at him sadly, as if to apologize for its mistress' behavior. He blinked and dropped his hand from the butt of his gun, where it had been resting nervously. He blinked again, and then, despite all of the problems of the last few days, despite all of the problems awaiting them in the next few minutes, he laughed. And laughed. Wiping surprised tears of merriment away, he stopped laughing long enough to tap Meryl on the shoulder, "You should hear yourself right now... You sound like Wolfwood." He smiled at her, happier at just seeing her fine and well, albeit a little angry, than he could remember being in a long time.

She had been too concentrated on her venomous hatred for the ship's hatch to hear him laughing behind her, but at his light touch, she whirled around, startling her thomas into running away, it's eyes rolling wildly as it raced for home.

Glancing back at her thomas' receding form, her head whipped around once more to the man opposite her. Her face went through several expressions, relief, anger, dismay, embarrassment, before finally settling on a combination of anger and something unidentifiable that he found strangely endearing. "What are you doing out of bed?! Are you crazy?! Do you have some sort of deathwish or something?! What---no, where-- ARGGHHH!! Do you realize that you're in the middle of a sandstorm, you idiot?!! You're going to get yourself killed one of these days, Vash the Stampede!!" She stopped her tirade suddenly, gasping for air, her eyes trained on a point somewhere near her feat. After a moment of awkward silence on her part, she started to turn an embarrassed pink.

He grinned cheekily at her, "Awww...were you worried about me?"

At this her head snapped up, her smoky eyes glaring at him with murderous intent. "You are lucky that I'm not armed right now," she growled.

He grinned back at her impishly and batted his eyes at her. She glared harder. After a few seconds of this, he burst out chuckling, followed closely by her surprised bell-like laughter. It was just more proof that sometimes hysteria is best controlled with humor.

After a minute or so, she calmed down enough to wipe the grit and tears from her eyes. "It's no use, Vash. It won't open," she said quietly, gesturing to the door below her. Around them, the wind screamed at their continued defiance of it.

After a moment he nodded. "Then we'll just have to make a door, won't we?" She looked up at him questioningly. "Stand back." She forced herself up and moved behind him as he uncased the gun hidden in his left arm. For a man so opposed to violence and death, he certainly was well equipped to deal it.

Aiming for the center of the hatch, he squeezed off a few shots in a rough semi-circle. An instant later he was dodging the ricochets and knocking Meryl out of their path as well.

"Coff--coff..." He breathed deeply. "I should've known it would be shielded. It's designed for deep-space. If it can take hits from interstellar matter moving at incredible speeds, what are the chances a bullet would've done anything." Meryl didn't answer to this as he'd answered himself already.

As he rolled over on his back, the wind whipping his night clothes to one side, he watched Meryl pick herself off of the ground and approach him. "I was wrong earlier," she looked at him. He blinked in surprise. "You're not suicidal, you're homicidal...you idiotic, bumbling--"

"We don't have time for this, Meryl." She stopped and nodded slowly as he continued, "How did you get in the last time?"

She paused, considering the question. "It just opened. The dune began to shake and it opened up--"

z---------------------z

Deep within the bowels of the ship, the timer clocked another second, settling for a time on 00:15:00.

A soft whirr of machinery greeted the time. As per regulations, a pop-up menu appeared next to the countdown, it's question flashing in red in the twilight of the room.

**Power A unavailable/inadequate.**

Resume Stage 2 with Power B? Yes/No

There was no one to choose for it, so it sat silently for exactly two minutes before choosing the default answer from it's databanks. 'Yes,' flashed brightly for a moment before dissolving into the background once more.

This simple 'yes,' caused a chain of reactions. Signal sent to signal port, routed through to the neural network, chased down as a command to the Transportation channel where, as per command, it switched three switches. One flipped on the lights in the corridor where Meryl had first entered the ship. One opened several panels lining the immense hatchway's walls. The last switch opened up the hatch. 

Humming happily in mechanical bliss, the machine prepared to enter the last few minutes of Stage 2. All was well.

z-----------------------z

Vash and Meryl were thrown to the ground once more, their discussion about methods of opening the hatch interrupted rudely by the hatchway's opening.

After blinking stupidly at this strange turn of events, they helped each other up once more, ignoring the increasing ferocity of the wind as they darted in the doorway. A major concern for both of them was to get in before it shut once more. Once inside, they could ponder the 'whys and wherefores' of their situation to their hearts' content.

As they ran into the corridor, Vash looked up at the now-revealed panels covering the walls, his eyes widening in astonished recognition. "Solar panels? So this thing needs power... But why--and for what?"

Meryl had no answers for him...at least none that she could express coherently. Instead she led him deeper into the bowels of the ship, her feet unerringly retracing the path she had taken a day ago. She was heading straight for the machine with its countdown.

z-----------------------z

The clock now read 00:12:24.

z-----------------------z

"Here it is!" Meryl's voice bounced off of the far wall, echoing through the corridor. "This is the room."

Vash rounded the corner, eyeing the door that Meryl had pointed out. Above the door, in neatly printed letters, a sign informed him that this was indeed the control room to the ship. 'So this is where it's all been happening.'

As they ran up to it, sensors in the wall ahead of them opened the door before they reached it, allowing Vash a view he had doubted he'd ever see again, at least, not outside of Sky City. It was the headquarters to the ship, the consoles ranging throughout the room controlling everything on board, from the life support systems to the entertainment deck. Although the room was most definitely not in use at the time, most of the screens darkened shadows in the room, one screen glowed brightly, numbers flashing down the screen in rapid succession.

Meryl pointed at the lone screen, with its whirling hologram next to it. "There," she gasped, "That's what is causing this." 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the guilty look on her face that she was doing her best to hide. He felt sorry for her, knowing what she knew, knowing that she was probably responsible for this. There was nothing to be done about it now though, and so he tried to ignore it as they crossed the room. He was perhaps the only one on the planet who could fully understand the torture she must be experiencing. In a way, it was his duty, but there was more to it than that. 'You're getting distracted...focus, Vash,' he berated himself silently. He would try to help her through it later...if there was a later. 

They reached the console, and all he could do for a moment was just stare at it in wonder. Silence reigned, before he broke it with a word.

z-----------------------z

Meryl watched Vash ponder something silently. His face was tinted with the red and green lights of the screen, the whirling globe of changing colors behind him. From this angle, it looked like a halo... Like a halo in one of the paintings at church back home.

She had never been very religious, figuring that if there was some all powerful deity out there, it wouldn't care so much about her church attendance so much as her deeds. However, at this moment, Vash looked like nothing other than an angel from one of those paintings...a messenger...a guardian... There was something, otherworldly about him. Something...beyond human. He spoke and she winced, startled out of her silent meditation.

"Terraforming."

"What?" She thought she had detected a note of--something in his voice. Something vaguely excited, but scared as well.

"This ship--this machine. Their sole purpose is to create a habitable world out of an uninhabitable one. See here--" he pointed at one corner of the screen, "This is an updated graph of the average planetary humidity. It shows an increase over the last twenty-five hours." He jabbed another finger at another part of the screen excitedly, "And this--this shows the temperatures for various parts of the world. They're dropping everywhere." His face turned towards Meryl's an expression of wonder and boyish excitement covering it. "Do you realize what this is? This is...everything...it's what she wanted."

"But what about the numbers over there?" Meryl pointed vaguely at the countdown, noting the time remaining. She knew what it was, deep down, but something in her mind was ringing an alarm bell. Surely it couldn't be that simple. Surely all this panic...all this pain and suffering couldn't be solved this easily?

"That--" he brought one finger to hover over it, "--is..." He paused, pushing up his sleeves and sitting down at the chair in front of him, "Is what I'm going to find out. It's obviously a countdown for something, but for what I don't know." Pressing a button to his left, a panel slid up, revealing a speaker.

***VOICE SYSTEM ACTIVATED***

Meryl jumped at the voice that seemed to come from out of nowhere. Vash grinned back at her, he had obviously been expecting it.

***Verifying identity. Two entities. One is unregistered. The other....Registered Level 2 user for SEED database. Welcome, Vash. What do you wish to do today?***

"What is this?"

***You are aboard the ship, the Jules Verne. The ship is currently in Stage 2, about to enter Stage 3.***

"How are you--doing this?" Meryl asked him, her eyes searching the room for the voice's source.

"I'm listed as a Level 1 SEEDs employee. It's the only reason I can even access the computer's files." He grinned sheepishly at her, before glancing back at the countdown with a quick explanation. "It's the only way Rem could get us out of her hair. We couldn't go anywhere or do anything without her there unless we had an access code for the mainframe." Meryl looked at him, uncomprehending and he shrugged. "Long story. Now is not the time."

00:09:03

"What are we going to do about this?" Meryl asked, her voice emotionless. Was this really it?

Vash's face darkened as he considered this. "It seems we have two options. One--shut it down--if we can. Two, leave it be." He looked over at her, his eyes glimmering in the semi-dark. "Much as I wish it weren't true, this 'Eden' it promises has a price."

"Which is?" her voice was hesitant but unyielding. She had come this far, for good or bad, it was her duty to see it to its end.

A whistling sigh in the dark marked his answer. "I don't know. I have a few guesses though." He directed his voice to the microphone once more. "Request data on Stages 1 and 2."

***I am afraid that at your SEED level, most of the data pertaining to Stages 1 and 2 are classified. Shall I continue?***

"Yes. Anything you can dig up, preferably timetables and general information on the process." They were running out of time, and Vash was beginning to feel the crunch.

***Processing request.*** The computer whirred quietly.

"You said something about a price to be paid," Meryl said quietly. "Where is the line where the price is too high?" She watched him closely, knowing his likely answer and dreading it as well.   
  
He opened his mouth to answer, before being interrupted by the ship's computer.

***Data ready. Three files found to match search criteria.*** It went silent, but a corner of the screen before them began to flash at them with three files listed. Vash chose the first one, a broadcast news report from Old Earth.

A woman's face appeared on the screen, her features largely obscured by a mask covering her nose and mouth. Behind her, a squat gray building stood beneath a sky just as colorless. She began to speak at them.

"Here I am in front of the Pentagon, once the headquarters for the defense department in the United States, which is an ironically fitting site for another historic undertaking. This building is rumored to be the location for the almost mythical, Plant Project, where the technology designed to alter environments for life on another world is being developed." She smiled a patented 'reporter's smile,' largely hidden by the mask. "Although this project has been sanctioned, and indeed is being funded by the major powers, the governments in question refuse to answer questions on it. Some sources speculate that they are afraid of receiving the same terrorist attacks and public criticism as their much more public counterpart, Project SEEDs. This is Jay Hunter, reporting out." The screen went dark for a moment, leaving only the countdown.

00:07:15

"We're running out of time. Hurry--" Meryl hissed as Vash jabbed at one of the other files. This one was a paper from a scientific journal, entitled, 'Catalysts in the Plant Project Engine--A Study in a Living Power Supply,' by a Dr. Raymond Galloway.

Most of it was technical writing, which they had neither the time nor the background to understand. Sighing impatiently, Vash addressed the ship, "What are the catalysts mentioned here, and what is the Plant Project?"

"The catalysts in question are the two main power suppliers for the Plant Project. They are smaller, genetically-engineered versions of the larger Plants, whose whole purpose is to provide the power necessary to start Stage 3 of the Plant Project. The Plant Project is the terraforming project in operation right now."

At the part about the Catalysts, Meryl noticed that Vash had gone pale, his face as expressionless as she had ever seen it. After a moment, he asked the computer another question, his voice strangely uncertain.

"What happens to the Catalysts after Stage 2?"

The computer searched the available data for an answer before scrolling the paper they had been reading and highlighting a section for them.

'The Catalysts, hereafter referred to as A and B, are connected via genetic coding, to the main engine, so that at any point, once the Project's Stage 1 is begun, the power stored within A and B may be tapped to reach the critical level for Stage 3. This power is directed through the Plants, where it is converted from an unusable form to a form that is suitable for the Plant Engine. This process involves breaking it down into its component parts and rebuilding it. This power is directed through the planet-rendering engine, so as to match the power with the desired traits for the planet's new environment (see table 1-8).'

"Fragmenting?" Meryl asked, looking lost. Vash however, knew exactly what it was. "You never answer our question," she continued. There was no response, but Meryl could feel Vash stiffen next to her. And she was getting a vague understanding of what was at stake here. _Please, don't..._

"They die, don't they?"

The clock met the five minute mark with a small beep.

***If you mean the Catalysts mentioned in the report, then yes. The report speculates as to their fate, listing death as a possibility with a 75% probability of occurrence. These are just guesses though, as the Plant Project has never been tested.***

Vash nodded, and Meryl swallowed. "Then, that's fate." He tried to sound stoic, but Meryl could see the fear and despair hiding behind his eyes.

"Vash--no..." She grabbed his arm. "There's got to be another way. Ask it- Ask it about the solar panels." She grasped at anything that might help. It couldn't end like this...

He looked up at this, his eyes shining with a faint hope, a flicker so dim, but she was glad it was even there. _That's it, don't give up just yet_, she thought fiercely, but it was something she didn't have the nerve to voice out loud.

"Why ARE the solar panels near the entrance open?"

00:04:15

***This falls under Level 3 clearance. All requests for data above approved level are sent into the Captain, as per operating--***

"Nevermind that...tell me what you can."

In response, the third file popped into view, a recording made by the esteemed Dr. Galloway himself. It fast-forwarded through several minutes of him speaking and gesturing before stopping and playing normally.

"-d there be a problem with Power Source A, Power Source B will be implemented until there is enough power to re-connect with Power Source A." The recording stopped with the doctor looking very pleased with himself.

"Solar Power...but with the sandstorms, it's not getting much power, if any at all." Vash mused.

00:03:40

***This is indeed a problem.*** The computer admitted. ***It is a side effect that was not planned for. This ship was supposed to land before all of the other SEEDs, on bed-rock if possible. By the time of their landing, the world was supposed to be well through with Stage 3.***

"What happens in Stage 3?" Meryl asked, motioning for Vash to repeat the question, which he did.

***Stage 3, the final stage to the Plant Project, involves the renewing of planetary tectonics, resulting in increased volcanic energy. The volcanic energy will go into creating new earth, but the emissions from eruptions and such will be used to aid in the creation of Hydrogen hydroxide.***

"Hydrogen hydroxide?" Meryl whispered.

"Water." Vash's face was hard, but there was a cold light that had not been there before. "How long is Stage 3?" he quickly questioned, waiting impatiently for an answer.  
00:02:20

No answer.

"How long is Stage 3?!" he asked again, watching the countdown.

***Estimated time for this planet is--roughly five to ten years.*** The computer answered him, sounding reluctant.

z---------------------z

Vash gasped, his eyes widening at this new information. "Damn," he cursed quietly, "It's bad enough that they created us to be sacrificed...but how is everyone else expected to survive this?" In a way, he was guiltily relieved. He didn't know if there was a win/win scenario for this situation. "We've got to shut this down," he told Meryl, who nodded and searched for a way to turn the machine off.

***It can only be shut down at the end of a stage, and only then if it has the authorization of the Captain.***

"Wait...how did you start the process then?" Vash turned to Meryl, before the computer answered for her.

***Dr. Galloway, signed in at approximately 14:28 shipboard time, 122 years ago before checking into the medical lab. He never signed out. After she answered for him, it was verified she was not authorized personnel, but by then Stage 1 had begun and only authorized personnel are able to stop the process.***

00:01:30

'Don't panic, don't panic...' Vash repeated to himself, thinking of other ways out of this...

00:01:25

z--------------------z

Meryl watched Vash start to panic, before turning back to the console with its deceitfully green planet spinning to one side. A dreadful sense of finality had settled over them, a blanketing touch that sapped her of thought. This was the end, she realized, this was it. 'After all we've been through... We're killed because I wanted to help, like he does. After all--'

But that was defeat talking. Meryl never gave up, she prided herself on that fact. And like Vash, she believed deep down, that there always was a light on the other side. So, just as he was fading away, she flared to life once more.

"We have a third option--destroy it," she stated firmly, her eyes resting on Vash now. "There is no time to find it and manually take it apart, and bullets would not likely harm it anyway...but you have another way."

He shook his head vigorously, "I know what you're saying, Meryl...but I can't. I did cause July and August, it's true...but someone else forced my hand. I've never...I don't know how..."

"So have you tried?!" she challenged him. "Are you saying you can't because you know, or because you are afraid of failure?"

He glared at her but did not answer. If only she knew the pain that the Angel Arm caused him, just by its existence. She glared back. "I am afraid," he finally admitted. "It could...kill..."

"We're all dead if you don't! What difference does it make how we go?!" she shouted.

But it **did** make a difference, he knew this. If it killed, then even if his cause was just...he was no different than his brother.

00:00:30

But she was right as well. He was scared of the consequences, but to stand aside in times of need...that was the way of the coward. That was not the way that Rem had shown him. If he did nothing...then she was truly gone, and nothing he said, nothing he ever did would bring her back.

"Hold on," he whispered, "If this works, near me is the only safe place." She looked at him, eyes shining and complied, her arms wrapping tightly around his waist. A part of him noted how nice it felt, to be held. 'Focus,' he ordered himself, forcing that thought away. 'Focus.'

_He didn't know how._

00:00:28

_He didn't._

00:00:27

_But he did, didn't he...or at least part of him did._

00:00:25

_That one...the one whom he denied._

00:00:23

_The splinter twin._

00:00:22

_"Are you there?"_

00:00:21

_Nothing--_

00:00:20

_--and then, a shadowy reply, hurt and suppressed, rose up like a wave on his conscious. "I can do it. You...you lack the skills, but we are one. I will do it because you are me, not vice versa."_

00:00:15

He was whole temporarily. Meryl looked at him frightenedly, her gaze alternating between the countdown and him. "Vash?"

_"She looks like Rem."_ The voice chuckled softly, calling on the reserves necessary to enable the change. _"How typical of me/you/us."_

00:00:10

**>>FLASH<<**

The transformation was an exquisite pain, easily mistaken for pleasure, as extremes often are. Eyes burning, metal and flesh binding seamlessly with a harsh light at the center.

"Sorry, Rem," he/they whispered.

00:00:01

Light flashed, a glowing globe of destruction, arcing from ground zero out into a soundless white wave. The chaotic winds were pulled behind it, cooling the thin layer of molten sand into a fine glass crater, iles wide.

The ground shook angrily at the hole in the sky.

Darkness returned once more as clouds blotted out the faint morning light.

Silence returned, an end to the storms.

z-----------------z

z-----------------z

Author's notes: (Yep, there's a bunch of 'em this go round.)

1st--Meryl swearing like a trucker. No offense to any truckers out there... I just figured that it'd be more appropriate than say...swearing like a sailor.

2nd and 3rd--The scientific reports and the science contained within this chapter... Regarding the report-- Hey, any science buffs out there? This report is the biggest load of B.S. I've written lately. HOWEVER... I did glance at (read as: looked at pics in) Scientific American to write it in a somewhat similar format. Regarding the science-- *sheepish grin* Most if it's pretty decent. Some better than, some worse than. Some of it I was too lazy to get off my dead butt and research. I mean, c'mon, it's a fanfic...

_Justifications...justifications..._

Damn conscience.

4th-- I'm assuming that they have a similar length of day to Earth.

5th-- Sand and Light. Okay okay, I dunno if this'll be a major sticking point or what, but I figured I'd cover my ass while I'm at it. No, I did not 'steal,' or even 'borrow,' my idea from the Sand and Light. It is hinted at quite strongly from about chapter 2 or 3 on, which were up long before ep. 23 of S & L. Flame me all you want, but note that to the best of my beliefs, the similarities in technology are completely coincidental.

6th-- Happy b-day mirth! Toldja I'd get it up, sooner or later. Consider this a belated b-day card, seeing as it's original due date was last Thursday.

7th-- There's an epilogue, to be attached to this. More'n likely tomorrow. It's for everyone who wanted a tie-up chapter. Nothing big...just locations for Vash, Meryl, Millie...and maybe somebody else. Who knows? 

Hope you enjoyed the story.

loki 


	9. Epilogue Who Wants HappilyEverAfter A

Disclaimer-Well...you've heard it all before. I'm done borrowing the chars  
for this story though, so all's good. In other notes, I don't own the lyrics  
to the song I'm quoting either. They're all Mary Cutrufello's, from the song Highway 59.

z----------------z

Darkness.

Though she was surrounded by it, lightning still danced behind her eyes in liquid flashes of memories not hers.

She felt herself floating, buoyed by a guardian presence beside her, nameless and formless, shielded from the uncut emotions of the shards she came across.

Darkness, feather-bright.

This presence dampened the memories somewhat, allowing her to peer into the stream without experiencing the pain. It allowed her an objective edge... One she almost wished she did not have.

Darkness, feather-bright, against a spray of burning stars.

She saw her. Saw her silhouette edged against the pulsing light of flames, saw her shadowed by the sparks of a million lives. Saw her. 

"Rem," she heard him whisper, and it was over... And she understood.

It was Rem. She was the one.

Soaring in darkness, Meryl understood something for the first time. She understood...and it made her wish that she was ignorant once more.

z-----------------z

He felt warm. It was a pleasant warmth, made all the more enjoyable by the fact that he knew, by all rights, he should be cold right now. Unprotected as he was, he should have been shivering in the still of the desert dawn. However, there was no denying the warmth that he felt beside him, no denying the steady pulse of heat against him. The pulse of life.

Life? What? His mind tried to wade through these thoughts, the fog of his sleeping mind impeding any attempts at coherent thought. _Cold... desert... Light... Her..._ Light? Images flashed though his mind, not answering anything precisely, but instead clearing his mind of the sleep. He felt the most rested that he could recall...which was weird, because wasn't he supposed to feel tired? Why was he supposed to feel tired? What was going on? Why couldn't he remember? 

>>A laugh, just beyond the edge of his conscience. A cold gleam from a silver gun and a feeling of vague disapproval.<<

An ache deep inside him told him what had happened though. What had he destroyed now? Whose lives had he ruined with that light that he now understood for what it was? Who else hated him now? Hating these thoughts and hating himself for being the cause of so much pain, he snuggled deeper, hoping to lose himself in the warmth.

A soft breath tickled his throat, sending unusual chills down his spine. In a shot, his eyes were open and staring in disbelief at what lay before him. It was the insurance girl--

_Don't. You know her name, use it._

It was Meryl, and she was curled against him, her slender form fitting against him like... He didn't know how to describe it... It was like the part of him he'd never known was missing had returned at last from the cold wake of the grave. The only clock to mark this forever was the rhythm of her pulse against him.

_How long has it been? When was the last time that someone held you this close? Not since Rem...and even then--_

Snipping that line of thought at the bud, Vash curled protectively around Meryl's body. He was prepared to jump back if she awoke, prepared to smile at her anger if she found him next to him...prepared to return his face to that mask, the one that everyone saw as his everyday chirpy self...but for now...

...For now he just wanted to hold and be held until the suns rose to wipe his memories and cleanse him of his guilt...

Breathing in the soft violet scent of her hair, he smiled slightly. It was a sad smile, but then, most true ones are. It figured that the only time he'd be able to get close to her were when she was asleep. It also figured that the only time he knew what he was feeling and what to say would be when there was no one to listen. That was the way his world went. Always had, and probably always would.

z-----------------z

Millie Thompson woke up in bed fully dressed and with a splitting headache. "Ohh..." she tried to roll over and sit up, only to find her shoulder throbbing strangely. 

She figured that she must have been drinking again. That was the only explanation for the headache and the queasy feeling in her stomach. But, as her big brother used to say, "Nothing cures a hangover like a cold shower and a big breakfast." Or at least that's what she thought he had said. Maybe it had been a cold shower and no breakfast. Maybe she'd be able to think straight if there wasn't a percussion band playing in her foggy head right now.

Rolling over onto her other side and sitting up groggily, she rolled up the sleeve to the offending shoulder to find out what was wrong. A rather nicely done tattoo of a cartoon black cat winked up at her mischievously, it's jade eyes dancing with inky merriment. She blinked in confusion, before her eyes were caught by an object on the nightstand next to her. The company credit card. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized that this could be very, very bad news.

_Sempai does not need to hear about this..._ Her brain formed the words fuzzily, trying to think of a way to hide this from her partner. No ideas were coming, and she decided that the best solution was to follow her big brother's advice regarding hangovers. Anything to clear her thoughts. But for now--a glass of orange juice.

Swinging her feet over the edge of her bed, she stumbled downstairs, wondering if Mr. Vash and her partner were back yet. She hoped not. Well, that sounded bad. She hoped they were okay, but something told her that she need a little more time before her partner came back to town.

z------------------z  
  
The bartender looked up in disgust as he heard the newest stranger in town growl at another patron. What was it with these freaks? He'd thought that he'd gotten away safely after avoiding conflict with that big girl and the man (who had claimed to be the Humanoid Typhoon...heh, what a joke). However, here he was, with another dangerous weirdo in town. Honestly, he didn't know how the guy who worked the other shift survived. He seemed to enjoy dealing with the drifters and wasters who invariably made the bar their first stop in town. As he wiped down the counter, he wondered if he shouldn't consider another line of work. He just didn't think he was a people person. Sighing heavily, he flipped the Satellite on to catch the morning news.

z---------------z

The man in the corner glared fiercely at one of the other customers, his grey eyes flashing steely as they eyed his hard-earned prize. After a moment of silent glaring, the other man dropped his eyes from his opponent's and turned back towards his drink with a sigh.

Noticeably less tense, Wolfwood released his death-grip on the pretzels and took another swig of his beer. _Damn straight you're not going to take these from me._ He smirked at the other customer's back before noticing that the man behind the bar was looking at him with disgust. It might've been for his Gestapo techniques regarding the pretzels...but it might also have been for the fact that the first thing Wolfwood had done upon entering had been to order a beer, asking for the Vatican discount. The bartender had only given in after Wolfwood had gotten down on his knees and begun to beg. And he hadn't found the portable confessional funny either. By the time that Wolfwood had gotten around to asking if he'd seen a guy in a red coat accompanied by two girls, the barkeep had flat out been ignoring him. Which didn't bode well for a second drink.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood, longtime shepherd to Our Lord's unruly flock ('Blessings or Bullets,' as his motto went), breathed a foamy sigh into his beer, wondering how far he could stretch this meal. He figured that he agreed completely with the Vow of Poverty he had taken when first becoming a priest...but this? Begging for beer? This had to be somewhere close to the limits of where the Church wanted him. After all, this was the third meal he'd had to beg for this week...and with the gas prices for his lovely Angelina? Surprising as it sounded, his luck had been better with that damned Tongari and those two girls. He wondered casually where they were right now...probably getting into all sorts of trouble...with Meryl beating the living daylights out of Vash at every opportunity. And Millie--

Poverty wasn't the only problem that Wolfwood had with his priestly duties. He also had a few problems regarding that whole Vow of Chastity. Ignoring the barkeep's renewed stare, he smirked into his beer once more, very unchaste thoughts running through his mind. Unchaste thoughts centering around a certain long-haired insurance girl--

"MR. PRIEST!!!!" A chirpy female voice interrupted his thoughts, blanking his mind and making his eyes widen to saucer-size. Whirling around, he was tackled by a large shape, and had just enough time to wipe the unpriestly thoughts from his mind before meeting Millie's eyes. "We didn't know you were in town, Mr. Priest!!"

"Hey, uh...honey, I was looking for you guys." He choked, still trying to blank his mind. It wasn't working. Damnable Holy Orders...

z--------------z

It figured that the two weirdos knew each other, the bartender thought sourly as he watched the priest choke on his beer and the lady (who, according to the other bartender, had been quite generous last night in paying for drinks) pat him on the back and ask if he was okay.

Finally finishing his job, he snagged the morning's paper and flipped to the Classifieds. Hmmm...the sandsteamer _Flourish_ needed a new cook...that was a job that couldn't possibly attract as much freaks, he noted, circling it with a red pencil.

z---------------z

Meryl woke up tasting her own tears, which disgusted her because she prided herself on her control. She was crying for herself... For Vash... For the people who she'd killed in her attempts to make a better world... For the memories that weren't hers... For Rem, the lady who she knew somehow was connected to Vash... She cried for all of these, the tears seeping from the corners of her eyes to soak her hair and--and...

With a start she realized that she was not alone in her sorrow. Somewhere in her mind she had been aware that she was curled up inside Vash's embrace, but it was a deep recess...one that knew her far too well. This was what she wanted...but this is what she would never have allowed herself, and had she been up to her normal standards of alertness, this would have ended as it always did. That moment of touch, electical impulses dancing along nerves deprived of that sensation--

Had she jumped up first upon awaking all of this would be over and done. A hurt Vash would be looking up at her in confusion by now as she, embarrassed and angry at being seen in a weakened state, stomped off towards town. Like always. But since she had never jumped up in outrage, the chance for a simple escape had passed...and she would be forced to deal with something that she had put off for so long. Something that scared her.

Sighing softly, she caught a hint of sand and leather in the air, overlaid by the clean scent of a cool desert wind. The faintest of pinks traced the edges of the clouds overhead as dawn began to break the horizon. The tickle of the tatters of Vash's sleeve as the wind whipped them past her ear. It was these sensations that she focused her energies on. Immortalizing moments for her memories, she was caught off-guard by his voice when he spoke.

"You're awake," his voice rasped, an echo of its usual self. Still, the tone was not what she had expected, none of his usual antics and mocking gestures to accompany this greeting.

"Yes...is it over?" Oddly enough, neither pulled away from the other...somehow realizing the other's genuine need, and that moment sank into the stillness of the morning from breath to stone in a heartbeat. 

There was a pause. "I think so," his voice was weary and he seemed to hesitate before continuing. "Are you alright?"

"Yes."

Another pause, this one backlit as a sun crested the horizon, casting their shadows to the west.

"Thank you," she said softly. 

He started to say something, stopped to reconsider...and then, held the moment close before continuing with a shrugged acknowledgement and a question, "Can you stand okay? We'd probably better get going before it gets too hot. The big girl's still in town, and she's probably worried by now." He felt like a jerk for bringing it up, but it was true. Much as he didn't want to get up, the world continued on despite the protests of its citizens.

"Yeah, let's go." Overhead, the clouds gathered and rumbled ominously as they untangled themselves. Meryl stood and dusted herself off, watching as Vash adjusted his gunbelt and did the same. She noted that he consciously avoided looking at the shredded sleeve of his shirt, where the light had come from. It pained her to see him like this, unsure and uncomfortable...and obviously feeling intense guilt pangs. "The town is this way." She pointed and took a step, feeling an odd crackle as she stepped on the desert sands. She was in a shallow crater of glass, she realized, the layer of glass so thin and the crater so shallow as to be barely visible to the naked eye. Containing the urge to shiver, she glanced back at Vash, noting how he stared blankly at the desert floor.

_He will understand. Don't worry, Meryl._ A voice whispered in her mind.

Steeling herself, she heeded the voice's advice and turned back to him with a gentle smile. "Are you coming?" She held out her hand. Eons passed before he looked up at her. She felt like a fool, but was rewarded as he smiled--

_A genuine smile, one that reaches and lights up his eyes._--

And accepted her hand.

Walking hand in hand, through the glass field, they climbed the walls of the crater slowly, only reaching the crest after both of the suns had risen and been covered by the growing cloud banks. Stopping at the top, they looked back down. Any trace of the ship had been obliterated...and gone with it was any physical evidence of her greatest mistake. All she had to live with now was herself. Not that that wouldn't be enough of a problem in itself. But at least the problem had been solved...in large part by the greatest disaster known to man, the man standing next to her.

She couldn't help herself. Despite the situation they had just survived, despite the problems they would face in the future...the irony of what had just happened and the joy of just being alive and not alone caused her to grin uncharacteristically. And she couldn't stop it. The grin grew to a small laugh, which grew to a giggle, and from there into a full-blown laughing fit. Vash watched her bemusedly for a moment before catching the fever himself and collapsing on the desert sand gasping for air and wiping tears from his face.

Sometimes it was just good to 'be.'

"Well, we'd better get going. I have a feeling that Millie won't be alone when we reach town." Vash paused to wipe some grit out of his eyes before pushing himself off of the ground once more, this time with a lighter step and a brighter look in his eyes.

"And why is that?"

"Oh, I heard a motorcycle pass about an hour ago. It had a familiar...ring to it you might say."

"Oh no..." Meryl's resigned sigh caused Vash to grin.

As they walked back towards town in the damp cool of the morning, he casually turned to her with a smile. "Did I ever tell you that you remind me of someone?"

"No, who?" She tried unsuccessfully to keep the curious tone out of her voice.

"Her name was Rem. She--she was a lot like you. In fact, up until recently I thought that I was only seeing you as her, and not completely as yourself. This worried me...until-"

A second's pause, caught and carried by an almost hesitant query, "Until?"

"Until I realized," he turned to her with a merry twinkle in his eyes and a stupid grin on his face, "That you're a lot meaner."

"WHA-A-A-A-TTTT??!!!!" She managed to knock him to the ground, hit him on the head, and stomp off, leaving him to rub his head in pain.

"OWWWW....SEE? SHE NEVER WOULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING LIKE THAT!!" He whined in that shrill voice that he reserved for her punishments. Unknown to the other, their grins were mirrored as they made their way. Everything would be alright. 

Far behind the joking complaints and the good-natured banter of the two companions on their journey back towards the town, and those who awaited them there, a lone drop fell from the heavens. Cooling rapidly in the atmosphere, it fell as a single jewel from the clouds onto the parched earth below. Soon after, another fell. And then another, followed by more. Quickening, the drops became a shower and then a downpour, falling upon the glass crater to slide to the bottom in a growing pool of the clear liquid.

Every journey is a circle...and every end is a beginning of something new and different. 

And from every disaster, there is always at least one good thing that comes. It is only up for those who remain to find it.

  
z------------------z

_(Let it rain) let your love  
(let it rain) let your love  
(let it rain) fall over me_

(Let it rain) let your love  
(let it rain) let your love  
_(let it rain) come set me free_

(Let it rain) let your love  
(let it rain) let your love  
(let it rain) fall over me

let it rain  
let it rain

I'm not sure I'll feel like this tomorrow  
when I can stand alone again  
so please don't tell her that you've  
found a new direction  
and I won't tell her where you've been

my feelings all my thoughts betray  
I can't believe I feel this way

let it rain  
let it rain

Somewhere, Rem smiled.

z---------------z  
  
Author's note: *deep sigh of disgust* Okay, there's a reason I don't do fluff...or romance for that matter. My friends tell me that I don't really have a romantic bone in my body. So...THIS--This thing is the result of me angsting over how best to end the story and appease all of the V/M followers who were asking for a happy ending. The W/M ending I didn't mind...but it sucked trying to end off the Vash and Meryl's story. Now, on to that other fic. *Deep sigh.* Ick. 


End file.
